This article presents the design of a variable stiffness, soft, three fingered dexterous gripper. The gripper uses two designs of McKibben muscles. Extensor muscles which increase in length when pressurised are used to form the fingers of the gripper. Contractor muscles which decrease in length when pressurised are then used to apply forces to the fingers via tendons which cause flexion and extension of the fingers. The two types of muscles are arranged to act antagonistically and this means that by raising the pressure in all of the pneumatic muscles the stiffness of the system can be increased without a resulting change in finger position. The article presents the design of the gripper, some basic kinematics to describe its function and then experimental results demonstrating the ability to adjust the bending stiffness of the gripper’s fingers. It has been demonstrated that the finger’s bending stiffness can be increased by over 150%. The article concludes by demonstrating that the fingers can be closed loop position controlled and are able to track step and sinusoidal inputs.
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