Everything-Grasping Gripper: A Universal Gripper with Synergistic Suction-Grasping Capabilities for Cross-Scale and...

Area of Science:

• Soft robotics
• Robotic manipulation
• Materials science

Background:

• Grasping diverse objects (solids/liquids, various sizes) is a key challenge in soft robotics.
• Existing soft grippers often struggle with cross-scale and cross-state manipulation.

Purpose of the Study:

• Introduce the Everything-Grasping (EG) Gripper, a novel soft end-effector.
• Enable cross-scale and cross-state manipulation with a single robotic gripper.
• Develop a tactile sensing framework for real-time object differentiation.

Main Methods:

• Synergistic integration of distributed surface suction and internal granular jamming.
• Development of a tactile sensing framework with liquid detection and pressure feedback.
• Implementation of the Tactile-Inferred Grasping Mode Selection algorithm for autonomous grasping.

Main Results:

• The EG Gripper successfully manipulated objects with surface areas from 0.2 mm² to over 62,000 mm².
• Achieved manipulation of objects 3500x smaller and 88x larger than the gripper's contact area.
• Demonstrated robust performance in underwater grasping, fragile object handling, and liquid capture.

Conclusions:

• The EG Gripper is the first soft gripper capable of reliably grasping both solid and liquid objects across scales.
• The unified compliant architecture offers unprecedented versatility in soft robotic manipulation.
• This technology advances the field of soft robotics for complex real-world applications.