A novel universal gripper based on meshed pin array

An Mo,Wenzeng Zhang

doi:10.1177/1729881419834781

Abstract

Conventional grippers are designed for specific applications. They often encounter difficulties when grasping different objects in unstructured environments. This article introduces a novel gripper to challenge the universal grasp capability. Passively slidable pins are array arranged in the gripper. By meshing of pin’s elliptical contour, shape adaption to various objects is achieved in both vertical and horizontal directions using a single motor. Contact force is analyzed based on static and kinetic friction. Kinematic simulation on the grasping process reveals the interaction between critical parameters and the overall grasp performance. To conclude, a prototype pin array gripper demonstrates high adaptability to various objects in real-world testing.

Highlights

Grippers have been widely used in robotic part handling and assembly, which range from simple industrial grippers to multifingered robot hands
We introduce a novel universal gripper based on meshed pin array
It provides a better solution to couple all pins to build multipoint contacts with objects over our preliminary research reported by Mo and Zhang,[32] together with other possible meshed pin array configurations, kinematic simulation, and experimental verification

Summary

Introduction

Grippers have been widely used in robotic part handling and assembly, which range from simple industrial grippers to multifingered robot hands. They are different in shape and size, and are irregular, in order to validate the universal grasp capability. For each object, grasping is repeated for four times, where the position and orientation of the target object is random In this way, by 28 iterations on different objects of different poses, the average maximum number of contacts is more reliable to benchmark the specific pin array design. The grasp performance can be improved in three ways: driving pins rotate further, increasing the number of pins, and designing pin’s contour with larger eccentricity. Note that they may be in conflict with some physical conditions. Larger eccentricity of pin contour might lower the mechanical strength of the pin

Experiments

Declaration of conflicting interests

Conclusion

Findings

29. FlexShape Gripper