Abstract
Soft actuator technology and its role in robotic manipulation have been rapidly gaining ground. However, less attention has been given to the potential advantages of its application to the agricultural sector, where soft robotics may be a game changer due to its greater adaptability, lower cost and simplicity of manufacture. This article presents a new design approach for soft grippers based on modules that incorporate the concept of bellows and combine it with the versatility and replicability of a 3D printed structure. In this way, the modules can be freely configured to obtain grippers adaptable to crops of different diameters. Furthermore, the definition of a method to determine the soft grippers features is also presented, with the aim of serving as the basis for a future benchmarking study on soft actuators. The experimental tests carried out demonstrated the feasibility and capability of the end-effectors to manipulate various fruits, ensuring a sufficient contact area for the safe handling of the targets and avoiding damaging the products.
Highlights
Robotics has traditionally been dominated by rigid link designs, during the last two decades this field has undergone a major paradigm shift thanks to the incorporation of soft technologies
The modular soft gripper is designed to be used as the end effector of a robotic manipulator [39,40], being able to perform almost all the harvesting movements required, known in the literature as picking patterns [20,21,22,23]
The soft gripper described in [49] presents a modular design, but it is only conceived for small fruits and edible fungi, with simplified computational modeling and relatively minor displacement, at the same inlet pressure, than the proposed soft actuator
Summary
Robotics has traditionally been dominated by rigid link designs, during the last two decades this field has undergone a major paradigm shift thanks to the incorporation of soft technologies. The growing interest in the use of new materials has made soft robotics a well-defined research area that aims to improve the interaction between robots and unstructured environments and humans by providing variable adaptability and compliance [1]. The ease of manufacture of this type of soft device is remarkable, without the need for heavy machines or machining skills. All these advantages have led many researchers to develop new soft designs, which have been on the rise in recent years and will continue to increase in the coming future
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