A 3D-Printed Omni-Purpose Soft Gripper

Numerous soft grippers have been developed based on smart materials, pneumatic soft actuators, and underactuated compliant structures. In this article, we present a three-dimensional (3-D) printed omni-purpose soft gripper (OPSOG) that can grasp a wide variety of objects with different weights, size...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on robotics 2019-10, Vol.35 (5), p.1268-1275
Main Authors: Tawk, Charbel, Gillett, Andrew, in het Panhuis, Marc, Spinks, Geoffrey M., Alici, Gursel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actuation
Actuators
Finite element method
Force
Fused deposition modeling
Grip force
Grippers
Mathematical models
Printing
Product design
Smart materials
Soft actuator
soft grasping
soft gripper
soft robot
Soft robotics
Solid modeling
Suction
Three dimensional models
Three dimensional printing
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Summary:Numerous soft grippers have been developed based on smart materials, pneumatic soft actuators, and underactuated compliant structures. In this article, we present a three-dimensional (3-D) printed omni-purpose soft gripper (OPSOG) that can grasp a wide variety of objects with different weights, sizes, shapes, textures, and stiffnesses. The soft gripper has a unique design that incorporates soft fingers and a suction cup that operate either separately or simultaneously to grasp specific objects. A bundle of 3-D-printable linear soft vacuum actuators (LSOVA) that generate a linear stroke upon activation is employed to drive the tendon-driven soft fingers. The support, fingers, suction cup, and actuation unit of the gripper were printed using a low-cost and open-source fused deposition modeling 3-D printer. A single LSOVA has a blocked force of 30.35 N, a rise time of 94 ms, a bandwidth of 2.81 Hz, and a lifetime of 26 120 cycles. The blocked force and stroke of the actuators are accurately predicted using finite element and analytical models. The OPSOG can grasp at least 20 different objects. The gripper has a maximum payload-to-weight ratio of 7.06, a grip force of 31.31 N, and a tip blocked force of 3.72 N.
ISSN:1552-3098
1941-0468
DOI:10.1109/TRO.2019.2924386