Four-Dimensional-Printed Multifinger Soft Gripper With Self-Sensing Capability for Coordinated Control

Due to the high flexibility and large deformation characteristics of flexible materials, achieving highly integrated sensor designs without compromising the flexibility of the soft fingers poses significant challenges. This leads to difficulties in controlling the soft gripper system, ultimately resulting in unstable grasping performance. Therefore, a 4D-printed multifinger soft gripper with integrated self-sensing function is proposed in this article. Furthermore, a dynamic model of soft finger is established based on Euler-Lagrange equation. Aiming at the performance response difference among soft fingers, a consensus control strategy is proposed to realize the coordinated movement among fingers. The integration of self-sensing capabilities and consensus control in soft grippers can enhance the gripping accuracy and stability, while enabling real-time adaptation and coordinated operation for objects of different shapes. Finally, the cooperative deformation capability among the fingers of the designed soft gripper was validated through numerical simulations and experiments.