A universal robot gripper based on concentric arrays of rotating pins
Mo, An; Zhang, Wenzeng
Sci China Inf Sci, 2019, 62(5): 050214
Recent advancements in robotics and flexible production lines have increased the demand for versatility in grippers. The autonomous grasping of a variety of objects has been a challenge for decades, and different scales of robot hands/grippers have been developed to achieve universal grasping capability. By mimicking the human grasping motion, articulated robotic hands offer great potential for dexterous manipulation. However, a dexterous robot hand with independently actuated joints is a highly redundant system that requires complex grasping algorithms. One possible tradeoff is an underactuated hand, in which a single actuator drives multiple joints with the aid of passive elements. However, such a gripper might eject the target objects under certain circumstances.