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.

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