Design Summary Draft 2
The article "This soft robotic gripper can screw in your
light bulbs for you", (2017), a team of engineers at the University of
California, San Diego, designed and built a soft robotic grip and its features.
The soft robotic gripper can "pick up and manipulate objects without
needing to see them and needing to be trained." It has three fingers made
of pneumatic chambers which, have multiple degrees of freedom allowing
manipulation of the held object. Each finger is covered with a "smart
sensing skin made of silicone rubber" with embedded "sensors made of
conducting carbon nanotubes". The sensing skin records and detects the
nanotubes conductivity changes as the fingers bend. The data is then processed
by the control board, which then creates a 3D model of the object the gripper
is manipulating. As good as
the soft robotic gripper is, there are similar products with better gripping
mechanism and unique gripping features like the FlexShapeGripper developed by
Festo with collaboration with students from Oslo and Akershus University.
The
FlexShapeGripper can pick up objects with widest range of shapes. The gripper is
made up of two cylinder which is filled with compressed air and water. The
second chamber is attached with elastic silicone moulding, which acts like chameleon’s
tongue. When the grabbing an object, the air inside the pressurised chamber will
be released through a small opening. The spring support moves the piston
upwards and the silicone cap pulls itself inwards. Wrapping itself in a tightly
form fit around the irregular object. All the mechanism inside the gripper is triggered
by pressure and it does not require any extra energy. Thus, making the
coordination easier between the handling system and gripper. Despite both
grippers are using compressed air, the FlexShapeGripper has a better suction and
gripping mechanism compared to soft robotic gripper.
Similarly,
there are better gripper such as MultiChoiceGripper developed by Festo with
collaboration with students with University of Linz. It was inspired by “the
human hand and modelled to the thumb”. The distinct feature of the
MultiChoiceGripper have is, there are different type of grips, enabling the finger
to rotate in “parallel or centric” manner. The built-in cylinders are used to
change the gripping manner and locking its gripping position by a mechanical
locking system. Each finger is attached with pneumatic microcylinder which
control the finger joint. With the addition of individual own drive system,
allowing the finger to move individually using compressed air. The gripper has
a T-shaped groove allows it to be adaptable and flexible which allows the
finger to be used on other gripper. Thus, by comparing with soft robotic
gripper, MultiChoiceGripper are at an advantage.
In conclusion, the
soft robotic gripper would not be a better choice compared to another gripper
like FlexShapeGripper and MultiChoiceGripper. It does not have any unique
gripper finger features resembling chameleon’s tongue or resembling a human’s
hand. Even though the soft robotic gripper is using the compressed air, but it
may not be able to grip firmly as compared to FlexShapeGripper, or the
MultiChoiceGripper have a unique gripping method. Therefore, in my opinion
there are much better gripper out in the market which can grip effectively.
Comments
Post a Comment