The Wavejoints: A Novel Methodology to Design Soft-Rigid Grippers Made by Monolithic 3D Printed Fingers with Adjustable Joint Stiffness

Dragusanu, Mihai; Achilli, Gabriele Maria; Valigi, Maria Cristina; Prattichizzo, Domenico; Malvezzi, Monica; Salvietti, Gionata

doi:10.1109/icra46639.2022.9811548

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 34 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The development and implementation of an experimental test rig is demonstrated in [ 14 ], in which a differential mechanism is used with robotic underactuated soft grippers to move multiple robotic fingers independently of one another using just a single actuator, the servomotor. A method for creating 3D-printed, tendon-actuated fingers for a kind of robotic gripper is presented in [ 15 ], where each finger is a monolithic device made up of rigid units linked by flexible wave-shaped joints. The methodology facilitates to identify the properties of the parts including thickness, length, wave amplitude, and phase.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and Control of Monolithic Compliant Gripper Using Shape Memory Alloy Wires

Ganapathy

Kaliaperumal

Choi

2023

Sensors

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper presents the design, fabrication and testing of a shape memory alloy (SMA)-actuated monolithic compliant gripping mechanism that enables translational motion of the gripper tips for grasping operation suitable for micromanipulation and microassembly. The design is validated using a finite element analysis (FEA), and a prototype is created for experimental testing. The reported gripping structure is simple and easy to build and design. The gripper is demonstrated to have a displacement amplification gain of 3.7 that allows maximum tip displacement up to 1.2 cm to possess good handling range and geometric advantage which cannot be accomplished by conventional grippers. The position of the gripper tip is predicted from the variation in the electrical resistance of the SMA wire based on the self-sensing phenomena. Self-sensing actuation of the SMA allows the design of a compact and lightweight structure; moreover, it supports the control loop/scheme to use the same SMA element both as an actuator and sensor for position control. The geometrical dimensions of the SMA wire-actuated monolithic compliant gripper is 0.09 m × 0.04 m and can be operated to handle objects with a maximum size of 0.012 m weighing up to 35 g.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and Control of Monolithic Compliant Gripper Using Shape Memory Alloy Wires

Ganapathy

Kaliaperumal

Choi

2023

Sensors

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Soft grippers are commonly prototyped using different materials, e.g., elastomeric materials whose mechanical properties often present anisotropic, inhomogeneous, and nonlinear behaviours [11,12]. Some recent development further exploits Interpenetrating Phase Composites [13] and topology optimization techniques for obtaining a multimaterial-like behaviour varying the 3D printing infill density [14,15]. A proper mechanical characterisation is very important to predict the dynamic behaviour of the soft robotic component [16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterization of finger joints with underactuated modular structure

Achilli

2023

Theoretical and Applied Mechanics - AIMETA 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. The characterization of flexible joints of robotic underactuated fingers allows the investigation of the finger flexion trajectories using a tendon-driven actuation. In this paper, the characterization of TPU 3D printed joints used in underactuated robotic fingers, is experimentally and numerically performed. Since the mechanical properties of 3D printed materials are uncertain, this research helps to define the characteristics of robotic fingers in terms of stiffness. The role of the stiffness for the control of fingers’ trajectories is fundamental and the obtained results are very useful for improving the method to track a certain predefined trajectory. Experimental and theoretical results evaluate the stiffness as a function of the infill density percentage of the material.

show abstract

“…Soft and rigid grippers each have their own strengths and weaknesses. To better enhance the performance of grippers, in recent years, especially with the rapid development of advanced manufacturing methods such as 3D printing (Tawk et al, 2019;Hussain et al, 2020), researchers have been considering combining rigid materials with soft materials, resulting in soft-rigid hybrid grippers, which can be seen as the third category of robotic grippers (Salvietti et al, 2018;Dragusanu et al, 2022aDragusanu et al, , 2022b. One important motivation for developing a soft-rigid hybrid gripper is that the incorporation of stiffer or stiffness-variation materials/ structures can significantly enhance a soft gripper's stiffness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and implementation of an underactuated gripper with enhanced shape adaptability and lateral stiffness through semi-active multi-degree-of-freedom endoskeletons

Cui,

An,

Lin

et al. 2023

The International Journal of Robotics Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Grasping is a key task for robots to interact with humans and the environment. Soft grippers have been widely studied and some have been applied in industry and daily life. Typical soft grippers face two challenges: lack of stiffness and insufficient adaptability to various objects. Inspired by the human hand, this paper proposes a soft-rigid hybrid pneumatic gripper composed of fingers with soft skin and rigid endoskeletons, and an active palm. Through different combinations of the four joints’ locking states within the rigid endoskeleton, each finger obtains 9 different postures in its inflating state and 13 different postures in its deflating state, endowing the gripper with the capability of adapting to a wider variety of objects. Simultaneously, due to the endoskeletons, the lateral stiffness of the gripper is significantly enhanced (load-to-weight ratio∼7.5 for lateral grasping). We also propose a series of grasping strategies for grasping objects with different sizes and shapes to utilize the versatile configurations of the gripper. Experiments demonstrated that the gripper conformed well to the surfaces of cylindrical and prismatic objects and successfully grasped all tool items and shape items in the Yale–CMU–Berkeley object set.

show abstract

The Wavejoints: A Novel Methodology to Design Soft-Rigid Grippers Made by Monolithic 3D Printed Fingers with Adjustable Joint Stiffness

Cited by 14 publications

References 34 publications

Design and Control of Monolithic Compliant Gripper Using Shape Memory Alloy Wires

Design and Control of Monolithic Compliant Gripper Using Shape Memory Alloy Wires

Characterization of finger joints with underactuated modular structure

Design and implementation of an underactuated gripper with enhanced shape adaptability and lateral stiffness through semi-active multi-degree-of-freedom endoskeletons

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About