Development of Pneumatic Soft Gripper for Effective Material Handling

Recent times have shown a drastic transition in robotics from rigid to soft mechanisms. The reason is that soft robots offer safer human-robot interactions, reduce weight and also offer strong environmental adaptability. However, the inherent characteristics of soft materials to exhibit multiple degrees of freedom (DoF) make it challenging to control their movements. Therefore, this paper presents the development of a soft gripper with simple architecture to effectively and economically manipulate delicate objects. The gripper constructed using silicon rubber has an air cavity to actuate its opening and closing pneumatically. This paper presents the different stages of its construction and demonstrates its application on a 4 DoF robotic arm for handling delicate objects. A simulation study of the structural parameters of the proposed soft gripper is also carried out using ANSYS finite element software. The preliminary results show the superior adaptability of the soft gripper in handling objects of various shapes and sizes. The proposed system can find application in food, biomedical and electronic industries.