Abstract
Traditionally, the robotic end-effectors that are employed in unstructured and dynamic environments are rigid and their operation requires sophisticated sensing elements and complicated control algorithms in order to handle and manipulate delicate and fragile objects. Over the last decade, considerable research effort has been put into the development of adaptive, under-actuated, soft robots that facilitate robust interactions with dynamic environments. In this paper, we present soft, retractable, pneumatically actuated, telescopic actuators that facilitate the efficient execution of stable grasps involving a plethora of everyday life objects. The efficiency of the proposed actuators is validated by employing them in two different soft and hybrid robotic grippers. The hybrid gripper uses three rigid fingers to accomplish the execution of all the tasks required by a traditional robotic gripper, while three inflatable, telescopic fingers provide soft interaction with objects. This synergistic combination of soft and rigid structures allows the gripper to cage/trap and firmly hold heavy and irregular objects. The second, simplistic and highly affordable robotic gripper employs just the telescopic actuators, exhibiting an adaptive behavior during the execution of stable grasps of fragile and delicate objects. The experiments demonstrate that both grippers can successfully and stably grasp a wide range of objects, being able to exert significantly high contact forces.
Highlights
Robotic end-effectors have evolved over the past few decades from simple, parallel jaw grippers to complex robot hands with multiple degrees of freedom (DoF) that require complex control laws and sophisticated sensing
We propose soft, retractable, pneumatically actuated, telescopic actuators that can be used for the development of soft and hybrid robotic grippers, facilitating the execution of efficient and stable grasps with a plethora of everyday life objects
The soft robotic gripper consists of two main parts: a robot wrist/mount and two soft, inflatable, telescopic fingers
Summary
Robotic end-effectors have evolved over the past few decades from simple, parallel jaw grippers to complex robot hands with multiple degrees of freedom (DoF) that require complex control laws and sophisticated sensing. By introducing elastic elements into traditional robotic structures, grippers can successfully execute a variety of grasping tasks under object pose uncertainties (Kim et al, 2013) and with a plethora of objects (Liarokapis and Dollar, 2017) Such design approaches increase the area of the contact patches between the object and the end-effectors, distributing the grasping forces appropriately and enabling interaction with soft, deformable objects (Tai et al, 2016; Stuart et al, 2017). Soft robotic hands are suitable for grasping and manipulating delicate and/or fragile objects and complex shapes by conforming to the object’s geometry and distributing contact forces among the surface (Galloway et al, 2016) This type of robot hands and grippers does not require specific control inputs, reducing the complexity, and cost of the device without compromising the grasping efficiency and safety (Laschi and Cianchetti, 2014). The rest of the paper is organized as follows: section 2 discusses the related work, section 3 presents the design of the gripper, section 4 details the grasping experiments and the results, while section 5 discusses the findings and presents future directions
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