Optimization and experimental study on structural parameters of bio-inspired tarsus compliant end-effector to reduce the risk of fruit sliding out from end-effector for cherry tomato harvesting

Xie, Huaibei; Kong, Deyi; Wang, Qiong

doi:10.1177/09544062211067777

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Tarsomeres and tarsal chains have already been used as inspiration for robotic applications, most prominently locomotion. Some recent examples include a mechanical adhesive gripper inspired by beetle claws and tarsi that was later employed in a climbing robot [ 20 , 21 ]; a complete walking and climbing robot called Drosiphibot modeled after the common fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster , which used passive tarsal chains as end effectors on its feet [ 22 ]; a spine-based wall climbing robot utilizing a tarsal chain inspired mount for its climbing spines [ 23 ]; a novel robotic gripper used in fruit harvesting that employs tarsal chain based end effectors to prevent fruit slipping after harvesting [ 24 ]; and another vertical climbing robot imitating the passive conformability of cockroach tarsal chains [ 25 ]. Another example would be the utilization of the tarsal chain structure and actuation principle in a very general sense in hyper-redundant manipulators for endoscopic surgery [ 26 ] or the creation of a tarsus-based robot leg for locomotion [ 27 ].…”

Section: Adopted Working Principles and Design Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

TriTrap: A Robotic Gripper Inspired by Insect Tarsal Chains

Winand,

Büscher,

Gorb

2024

Biomimetics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Gripping, holding, and moving objects are among the main functional purposes of robots. Ever since automation first took hold in society, optimizing these functions has been of high priority, and a multitude of approaches has been taken to enable cheaper, more reliable, and more versatile gripping. Attempts are ongoing to reduce grippers’ weight, energy consumption, and production and maintenance costs while simultaneously improving their reliability, the range of eligible objects, working loads, and environmental independence. While the upper bounds of precision and flexibility have been pushed to an impressive level, the corresponding solutions are often dependent on support systems (e.g., sophisticated sensors and complex actuation machinery), advanced control paradigms (e.g., artificial intelligence and machine learning), and typically require more maintenance owed to their complexity, also increasing their cost. These factors make them unsuited for more modest applications, where moderate to semi-high performance is desired, but simplicity is required. In this paper, we attempt to highlight the potential of the tarsal chain principle on the example of a prototype biomimetic gripping device called the TriTrap gripper, inspired by the eponymous tarsal chain of insects. Insects possess a rigid exoskeleton that receives mobility due to several joints and internally attaching muscles. The tarsus (foot) itself does not contain any major intrinsic muscles but is moved by an extrinsically pulled tendon. Just like its biological counterpart, the TriTrap gripping device utilizes strongly underactuated digits that perform their function using morphological encoding and passive conformation, resulting in a gripper that is versatile, robust, and low cost. Its gripping performance was tested on a variety of everyday objects, each of which represented different size, weight, and shape categories. The TriTrap gripper was able to securely hold most of the tested objects in place while they were lifted, rotated, and transported without further optimization. These results show that the insect tarsus selected approach is viable and warrants further development, particularly in the direction of interface optimization. As such, the main goal of the TriTrap gripper, which was to showcase the tarsal chain principle as a viable approach to gripping in general, was achieved.

show abstract