Design of a flexible gripper based on inflatable rubber pockets

摘要

A flexible gripper based on the use of compliant materials (i.e., rubber) with pneumatic inflation was designed, analyzed, built and tested. Parametric FE analyses were conducted to investigate the effects of process and design parameters, such as rubber material, pressure, initial jaw displacement and friction, on the selected flexible gripper concepts. Based on the FEA results, a simple, single rubber-pocketed flexible gripper was designed and built. Feasibility experiments were performed to demonstrate and obtain an overall understanding about the capability and limitations of the gripper. It was found that objects with different shapes (cylindrical, prismatic and complex), weight (50 grams to 20 kg.), and types (egg, steel hemi-spheres, wax cylinders, etc.) could be picked and placed without any loss of control of the object. The range of positioning error for two different part shapes (i.e., prismatic or cylindrical) was found to be 20 - 90μm (translational) and 0.03 - 0.9 degree (rotational).