Design and Analysis of a Novel Deployable Robotic Grasper

Abstract

In order to grasp large-scale unknown objects, a novel deployable robotic grasper is presented in this paper, which is composed of a train of basic metamorphic mechanism modules. Firstly, a detailed mechanism design is introduced, in which a scissor-shaped mechanism is used to design basic module so that it has single deployment mobility and a particular metamorphic mechanism is applied to change its mobility from deployment motion to grasping motion. Then, metamorphic process, mobility analysis, and singularity analysis of the basic module are conducted and the assembling of the grasper is illustrated. Secondary, the deploy/fold ratio and its influencing factors are discussed. Thirdly, the workspace of the grasper is demonstrated, which shows that the grasper has large reachable workspace. In addition, kinematic equation and dexterity of the proposed grasper are also presented. Finally, the shape adaptability and grasping simulation are conducted, which shows that the grasper has good grasping performances and can be used to grasp large-scale unknown objects.