A soft pneumatic dexterous gripper with convertible grasping modes

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel soft pneumatic dexterous gripper that consists of four soft fingers and a movable sucker. Compared with rigid dexterous hands and other soft grippers, the soft pneumatic dexterous gripper has four convertible grasping modes, which can grasp a wide range of objects due to the proposed conversion mechanism. Most parts of the dexterous gripper are 3D-printed with resin in order to make it lighter. The soft finger is made of silicone rubber with the pleated channel, making the grasping process more flexible and safer. The curvature performance of single finger is predicted through finite element analysis (FEA) before making a prototype. The simplified kinematic model and tip workspace of the gripper are obtained to reveal its grasping range. Then, a mathematical model of the soft bending finger is proposed in order to explain the relationship between input air pressure and the finger bending angle. Finally, the single finger bending and the gripper grasping experiments results validate the accuracy of the model, consistency of finite element analysis, and rationality of the design.