A robotic gripper system for limp material manipulation: Hardware and software development and integration

Focuses on the hierarchical, sensor based control structure for the robotics gripper system designed for handling deformable, materials. The hardware and software implementation of the designed system are used to prototype and test the system. From the presented results, it can be concluded that the robotic gripper system integrated with the implemented control architecture, performs at its fullest potential, with highest performance when using both visual and non-visual proximity sensors to assist the process of object manipulation. While the reliability is tremendously high when using vision and proximity sensors for manipulation, the number of panels manipulated per minute decreases significantly, as the speed of the belt increases. It is concluded that if the speed of the belt were to be kept below 50% of its maximum, using both vision and proximity sensors (robot speed of 100%) results in a highly reliable manipulation of about 13-15 panels of fabric per minute, thus exceeding the system requirements of 8-10 panels per minute.