A novel design of a passive variable stiffness soft robotic gripper

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Materials Science
• Mechanical Engineering

Background:

• Traditional robotic grippers often lack adaptability for diverse object shapes and fragility.
• Achieving both delicate grasping and rigid load-bearing capabilities in a single gripper remains a challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and develop a passive variable stiffness soft robotic gripper.
• To investigate the jamming principle for robust and adaptable object manipulation.
• To enable soft grasping and rigid load-bearing functionalities.

Main Methods:

• Proposed a design model based on vine-inspired twisting and hanging phenomena.
• Analyzed the gripper's principle, stiffness relationship with objects, and instability effects.
• Developed a motor-driven model and analyzed grasping mechanics using large deformation principles.
• Constructed an experimental prototype for validation.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated a passive variable stiffness soft robotic gripper with high reliability and stability.
• Verified the gripper's ability to perform both soft grasping and rigid load-bearing.
• Validated the design principles and grasping deformation process through experiments.

Conclusions:

• The proposed vine-inspired jamming gripper offers a simple, robust solution for object manipulation.
• The passive variable stiffness mechanism effectively balances delicate handling with load-bearing capacity.
• Experimental results confirm the feasibility and effectiveness of the developed soft robotic gripper.