Sensor system for controlling a multifingered gripper on a robot arm

In the last few years different multifingered grippers have been developed and a lot of research work has been done in the field of grasping and manipulating objects with such grippers. With the help of fingers it is possible to grasp different objects with different shapes without having to change the gripper. To use a multifingered gripper in industrial applications it has to be mounted on another robot to enhance the working space. In the paper the requirements of a multifingered gripper on a robot arm in a manipulation station are discussed, with particular attention given to one part of the sensor system: the object state sensor. This sensor provides the control system with information about the object to be grasped.