Assessment of Contact Parameters of Semi-Elliptical Soft Fingertips for Anthropomorphic Robotic Grippers

Robotic and artificial hands use soft fingers as fingertips for better stability in grasping and manipulation. Soft fingertips are used it increases the capability to make steady then encircling grips by deforming throughout connection and applying a large interstellar of mechanical loads then displacement of the rigid target objects. The study of contact mechanics for the soft finger in previous research has been carried out on the hemispherical and cylindrical structures whereas this study concentrates on the use of a semi-elliptical structure, which represents more realistic soft fingertips. This work presents an experimental comparison between a hemispherical, semi-elliptical, and cylindrical structure to be used as a soft fingertip that is this work compares the contact parameters of a soft hemispherical finger-tip, semi-elliptical fingertip, and cylindrical fingertip pressed against a flat, convex, and a concave profile. The analysis of soft fingertips on various types of profiles plays the main role in the modeling of anthropomorphic robotic fingertips. From this study, the semi-elliptical fingertip can be used for both precision and power grasp that depends upon the target profile.