A Soft Gripper with Retractable Nails for Advanced Grasping and Manipulation

Abstract

This study describes the enhancement of a vacuum actuated soft gripper's grasping capabilities using retractable finger nails and an active re-configurable palm. The finger nail mechanism is pneumatically actuated and enables the gripper to perform complex grasping and manipulation tasks with high repeatability. The retracted nails can exert normal grasping forces of up to 1.8N and enable grasping of objects up to 200μm thick from flat surfaces, while allowing the gripper to execute delicate pinch grasps without complex trajectory or grasp planning. A wide array of robotic grasping tasks that were not possible without nails are also described.