Gluing-Free Soft Robotic Hands for Cake Topping

This paper focuses on cake topping performed by a soft robotic hands. Recently robots have been introduced into food factories for improving productivity and reducing labor costs. Robots are actively used in various manufacturing processes. Unfortunately, it is currently difficult to introduce robots into topping, which is a delicate operation dealing with soft food materials. Thus, this research challenges topping operations of cakes using soft robotic hands. We fabricated soft fingers without gluing. Soft fingers were cast in silicone rubber using gelatin as a sacrificial material. A soft robotic hand was composed of a pair of soft fingers. Topping experiments were conducted using the fabricated soft hands. First, we confirmed the usefulness of the soft hands by conducting a topping experiment using strawberry samples. Next, topping experiments were conducted using real strawberries and cake bases. On the ‘nappe’ base with a flat surface, strawberries could be topped straight in a uniform posture. Although the topping was successful on the ‘piping’ base with uneven surface, it was found that the posture of the strawberries varied.