A Soft Pneumatic Gripper Integrated with a Flexible Capacitive Pressure Sensor

Soft robotics has been growing as one of the most promising fields due to the outstanding characteristics of its inherent soft and compliant mechanism, excellent compatibility with different working environments, and diverse design configurations. However, these merits also make it difficult to detect the force information of soft robots, which is one of the most important indexes in the safe interaction with humans or environments. Therefore, a flexible capacitive pressure sensor was proposed for integration on the soft pneumatic gripper and detection of the interaction pressure or force. The manufacturing procedure of the soft pneumatic gripper was presented in detail. A two-jaw unit and a three-jaw unit were designed and prototyped for grasping test and interaction force detection. The results show that the flexible pressure sensor integrated on the two-jaw grasping unit can well reflect the contact force of the soft pneumatic gripper. The three-jaw unit can well grasp objects with different shapes and hardness.