Soft robotic honeycomb-velcro jamming gripper design

In this paper, using a honeycomb-velcro structure to generate a novel jamming gripper is explored. Each finger of the gripper consists of multi-layers with a honeycomb sandwich structure acting as a core wrapped by a fabric sheet and sealed by a latex membrane. This structure can transit between unj...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Chung, Yu Cheng, Chow, Wai Tuck, Nguyen, Van Pho
Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/181385
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:In this paper, using a honeycomb-velcro structure to generate a novel jamming gripper is explored. Each finger of the gripper consists of multi-layers with a honeycomb sandwich structure acting as a core wrapped by a fabric sheet and sealed by a latex membrane. This structure can transit between unjammed (flexible) and jammed (rigid) states thanks to the vacuum pressure. Various materials of honeycomb structure, fabric, and reinforcements are investigated to seek optimal combinations for making the jamming fingers. Then, such fingers are deployed in experiments to evaluate the stiffness and the surface friction with different loads in terms of with or without vacuum. Vacuum pressure boosts the stiffness and friction of all the jamming fingers compared with the without-vacuum case. Attached to a gripper, the jamming finger shows good performance in diverse manipulation with food, a metal component, a toy, a can, and a bottle. Furthermore, the variable-stiffness finger under vacuum pressure can be utilized to perform assembly and installation operations such as pushing a bolt into an aligned hole.