Magnetically Guided Soft Robotic Grippers

Soft robotic grippers based on magnetorheological elastomers are proposed. Rigid nonmagnetic skeleton of the gripper is encased by an elastomer with magnetic properties that exhibits soft-touch properties and reacts to external magnetic field. The basic concept of the grippers, their operation and first prototypes are presented together with the utilized magnetorheological material development and measurement of its mechanical and magnetic properties.