Soft robotic grippers are able to carry out many tasks that traditional rigid-bodied grippers cannot perform but often have many limitations in terms of control and feedback. In this study, a Fin Ray effect inspired soft robotic gripper is proposed with its whole body directly 3D printed using soft material without the need of assembly. As a result, the soft gripper has a light weight, simple structure, is enabled with high compliance and conformability, and is able to grasp objects with arbitrary geometry. A force sensor is embedded in the inner side of the gripper, which allows the contact force required to grip the object to be measured in order to guarantee successful grasping and to provide the most suitable gripping force. In addition, it enables control and data monitoring of the gripper’s operating state at all times. Characterization and grasping demonstration of the gripper are given in the Experiment section. Results show that the gripper can be used in a wide range of scenarios and applications, such as the service robot and food industry.

In this paper, a multi-functional soft robot module that can be used to constitute a variety of soft robots is proposed. The body of the soft robot module made of rubber is in the shape of a long strip, with cylindrical chambers at both the top end and bottom end of the module for the function of actuators and sensors. The soft robot module is driven by supercoiled polymer artificial muscle (SCPAM) strings, which are made from conductive nylon sewing threads. Artificial muscle strings are embedded in the chambers of the module to control its deformation. In addition, SCPAM strings are also used for the robot module’s sensing based on the linear relationship between the string’s length and their resistance. The bending deformation of the robot is measured by the continuous change of the sensor’s resistance during the deformation of the module. Prototypes of an inchworm-like crawling robot and a soft robotic gripper are made, whose crawling ability and grasping ability are tested, respectively. We envision that the proposed proprioceptive soft robot module could potentially be used in other robotic applications, such as continuum robotic arm or underwater robot.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract