WebGripper: Bioinspired Cobweb Soft Gripper for Adaptable and Stable Grasping

Abstract

Web structure is a flexible structure widely used in animal predation behavior and human hunting work, which exhibits an excellent capability of gripping objects stably and securely. Inspired by the predation behavior of spiders, in this article, we present a bioinspired cobweb soft gripper, named WebGripper, which takes on a form like a spider web before grasping an object and presents an entangling state like a snake after grasping the object. These characteristics result in broad adaptability to various objects and enhanced grasping stability. The design concept, grasping principle, and fabrication process of the WebGripper are presented in this work, and the influences of cable layout and soft finger installation angle are analyzed to provide a reference for the design of the WebGripper. To evaluate the performance of the WebGripper, we carried out experiments on grasping objects with different shapes and sizes. Experimental results illustrated the universal adaptable grasping ability of the WebGripper, which exhibits excellent application prospects in many fields, such as goods sorting, fruit picking, and underwater fishing. This work is expected to promote the development of a high-performance soft gripper that may be used in a number of applications based on the understanding of the bionic web structure.