Granular jamming transitions for a robotic mechanism

Abstract

The jamming transitions for granules growing field of interest in robotics for use in variable stiffness mechanisms. However, the traditional use of air pressure to control the jamming transition requires heavy vacuums, reducing the mobility of the robot. Thus, we propose the use of water as a hydraulic fluid to control the transition between free and clustered granules. This paper presents comparative studies that show that a hydraulic granular jammed finger joint can both achieve the same stiffness level and maintain the same hysteresis level of a pneumatic system, with only a small volume of fluid.