Customization Methodology for Conformable Grasping Posture of Soft Grippers by Stiffness Patterning

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Materials Science
• Mechanical Engineering

Background:

• Soft grippers utilize flexible materials for improved grasping functionality.
• While versatile grippers are valuable, many industrial uses demand object-specific designs.
• Existing soft grippers often lack customization for targeted object manipulation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a design methodology for soft grippers customized for single, dedicated objects.
• To develop a simplified analytical model and rapid fabrication method for custom soft grippers.
• To demonstrate enhanced performance of customized soft grippers in terms of force and conformability.

Main Methods:

• Implementing stiffness patterns on pneumatic bending actuator constraint layers to achieve irregular bending curvatures.
• Developing a simplified analytical model using geometric approximations and pseudo-rigid-body modeling.
• Fabricating customized soft grippers and comparing their performance against non-patterned counterparts.

Main Results:

• Customized soft grippers exhibited superior shape conformability to target objects.
• Under identical actuation pressure, customized grippers achieved nearly three times the lifting force of non-patterned grippers.
• The maximum contact force was reduced to two-thirds with the customized soft grippers.

Conclusions:

• Customized soft gripper designs offer significant improvements in lifting capacity and safety for specific object grasping.
• The proposed methodology enables efficient customization and fabrication of high-performance soft grippers.
• This approach advances the application of soft robotics in industrial settings requiring precise manipulation.