Abstract
Soft grippers have experienced a growing interest due to their considerable flexibility that allows them to grasp a variety of objects, in contrast to hard grippers, which are designed for a specific item. One of their most remarkable characteristics is the ability to manipulate soft objects without damaging them. This, together with their wide range of applications and the use of novels materials and technologies, renders them a very robust device. In this paper, we present a comparison of different technologies for soft robotics grippers. We fabricated and tested four grippers. Two use pneumatic actuation (the gripper with chambered fingers and the jamming gripper), while the other two employ electromechanical actuation (the tendon driver gripper and the gripper with passive structure). For the experiments, a group of twelve objects with different mechanical and geometrical properties have been selected. Furthermore, we analyzed the effect of the environmental conditions on the grippers, by testing each object in three different environments: normal, humid, and dusty. The aim of this comparative study is to show the different performances of different grippers tested under the same conditions. Our findings indicate that we can highlight that the mechanical gripper with a passive structure shows greater robustness.
Highlights
Robotics grippers are one of the most important components in the industry because of their capability to manipulate objects
Traditional hard robotic grippers consist of a set of mostly rigid joints and links [3] that have to precisely adapt to the object to not damage it
Their use is limited to a specific item type
Summary
Robotics grippers are one of the most important components in the industry because of their capability to manipulate objects. They realize transportation tasks and perform quality control to optimize robotic work cells [1]. Traditional hard robotic grippers consist of a set of mostly rigid joints and links [3] that have to precisely adapt to the object to not damage it. Their use is limited to a specific item type. If a variety of objects needed to be manipulated, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to grasp them with the same rigid gripper
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