Final Design Summary & Analysis

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 (USCD), 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 UCSD is, there are similar products with better gripping mechanism and special gripping features like the FlexShapeGripper developed by Festo with collaboration with students from Oslo and Akershus University.
One of the differences between UCSD and the FlexShapeGripper is the gripping mechanism. FlexShapeGripper (Festo, 2017) was inspired by chameleon’s tongue and designed to pick up objects with the widest range of shapes. The gripper is made up of two cylinders, one containing compressed air. The other cylinder containing water and attached with elastic silicone moulding. When grabbing an object, the air inside the pressurized chamber will be released through a small opening. Then, causing the silicone cap to move inwards while wrapping itself in a tight form fit around the irregular object acting as a suction. When gripping an object, the mechanism inside FlexShapeGripper is triggered by pneumatically and it is strong enough to hold an object without additional strength. Despite both grippers are using compressed air, the FlexShapeGripper has better suction and gripping mechanism compared to UCSD.
Similarly, there is better gripper like MultiChoiceGripper developed by Festo with collaboration with students with the University of Linz (Festo, 2014). One of the differences between the UCSD and the MulitChoiceGripper is the gripping features. It was inspired by “the human hand and modeled to the thumb”. The distinct feature of the MultiChoiceGripper is there are different types of grips, enabling the finger to rotate in a “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 joint is controlled by the pneumatic microcylinder. Each finger has an 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 allowing the finger to be used on another gripper. Therefore, by comparing with soft robotic gripper, MultiChoiceGripper is 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 a chameleon’s tongue or resembling a human’s hand. Even though the UCSD is using the compressed air as well, 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 is much better gripper out in the market which can grip effectively.

References
Festo. (2017, January). FlexShapeGripper – Gripping modelled on a chameleon’s tongue. Retrieved from https://www.festo.com/net/SupportPortal/Files/367915/Festo_FlexShapeGripper_en.pdf
Festo. (2014, April). MultiChoiceGripper. Retrieved from https://www.festo.com/net/SupportPortal/Files/333986/Festo_MultiChoiceGripper_en.pdf

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