A Stretchable Jamming Gripper Grasping Flat Plates

The demand for drone-based object transportation has been rapidly growing recently. Current drones face limitations in their ability to grasp objects on the flat surface. To address this issue, our study presents a universal jamming holding system with the capability to grasp flat surfaces. In general, jamming grippers cannot grasp flat surfaces. Here we have introduced a stretchable membrane and spherical shape to the gripper, allowing our jamming gripper to grasp flat surfaces. We assumed that when the stretchable membrane attaches to an object, the stretchable membrane spontaneously forms microscopic suction cup-like structure at the contact area. Our jamming gripper then can grasp flat objects by the effect of the suction cup-like structure. Our jamming gripper is ideal for drone mounting as it maintains the center of gravity during the gripping process and can operate with low positional accuracy. In addition, our jamming gripper operate on a pneumatic circuit powered by a solenoid valve, allowing our drone to hold objects without consuming energy. Our experimental results demonstrated that an acrylic plate could support a load of 945 g on a flat surface at a filling rate of 75%. Our gripper also has a good adsorption force on metal, acrylic, ice, and other surfaces. The gripping force of our grippers is independent of the pressing force. Our jamming gripper can be mounted on a drone and controlled wirelessly to perform grasping movements autonomously, making them highly versatile. It can be applied to various situations where the shapes of objects to be grasped are uncertain, such as delivery of goods to remote areas or sample collection.