Bionic soft robotic gripper with feedback control for adaptive grasping and capturing applications

  • Tingke WU 1,2,3 ,
  • Zhuyong LIU , 1,2,3 ,
  • Ziqi MA 1,2,3 ,
  • Boyang WANG 1,2 ,
  • Daolin MA 1,2 ,
  • Hexi YU 1,2
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  • 1. Department of Engineering Mechanics, School of Ocean and Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
  • 2. State Key Laboratory of Ocean Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
  • 3. MOE Key Laboratory of Hydrodynamics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
zhuyongliu@sjtu.edu.cn

Received date: 06 Jul 2023

Accepted date: 03 Dec 2023

Copyright

2024 Higher Education Press

Abstract

Robots are playing an increasingly important role in engineering applications. Soft robots have promising applications in several fields due to their inherent advantages of compliance, low density, and soft interactions. A soft gripper based on bio-inspiration is proposed in this study. We analyze the cushioning and energy absorption mechanism of human fingertips in detail and provide insights for designing a soft gripper with a variable stiffness structure. We investigate the grasping modes through a large deformation modeling approach, which is verified through experiments. The characteristics of the three grasping modes are quantified through testing and can provide guidance for robotics manipulation. First, the adaptability of the soft gripper is verified by grasping multi-scale and extremely soft objects. Second, a cushioning model of the soft gripper is proposed, and the effectiveness of cushioning is verified by grasping extremely sharp objects and living organisms. Notably, we validate the advantages of the variable stiffness of the soft gripper, and the results show that the soft robot can robustly complete assemblies with a gap of only 0.1 mm. Owing to the unstructured nature of the engineering environment, the soft gripper can be applied in complex environments based on the abovementioned experimental analysis. Finally, we design the soft robotics system with feedback capture based on the inspiration of human catching behavior. The feasibility of engineering applications is initially verified through fast capture experiments on moving objects. The design concept of this robot can provide new insights for bionic machinery.

Cite this article

Tingke WU , Zhuyong LIU , Ziqi MA , Boyang WANG , Daolin MA , Hexi YU . Bionic soft robotic gripper with feedback control for adaptive grasping and capturing applications[J]. Frontiers of Mechanical Engineering, 2024 , 19(1) : 8 . DOI: 10.1007/s11465-023-0779-6

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the General Program (Grant No. 12272222) and Key Program (Grant No. 11932001) of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, for which the authors are grateful.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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