Design and Test of a Curved-Beam Based Compliant Gripper for Manipulations of Actively Deformable Objects

Sizes and stiffness variations of actively deformable objects pose significant challenges on the design of compliant constant-force gripper. This paper presents a curved-beam based constant force compliant gripper which is composed of the constant force module, the bistable module, the preloading module and the linear guide. A curved-beam constant force mechanism is designed to generate constant force output, the non-constant force motion range of which is further eliminated via curved-based bistable mechanism and preloading module. After a formulation to find the optimal gripper configuration, the design is verified through comparison with simulation results. Finally, a prototype of the proposed gripper is tested to demonstrate its grasping capacity.