Soft Adaptive Gripper with Active Enveloping Arms and Vacuum Jamming Technology

Abstract

A new type of pneumatic soft gripper is designed and fabricated inspired by the structure and function of mollusk. The gripper jaws of this device are made of soft silicone, which open and close, and bidirectional bending is achieved to hold or release the object. At the same time, a new structure composed of high-density elastic multi-chamber soft body and vacuum shaping structures is proposed. The technical scheme is made to fill the shaping bag with granular material to conform to the object shape and a reliable constraint is realized between the gripper and the object under vacuum conditions. Therefore, good gripping performance is obtained for unfamiliar objects of variable shapes. In the fabricated device, soft adaptive bodies enlarge the contact area to adapt to the work-piece. Meanwhile, the vacuum shaping elements are added to increase shape adaptive capacity. It is useful for soft adaptive gripper design, to provide theoretical and technical support for food selection, marine biology study and mixed flow manufacturing lines.