Self morphing soft-robotic gripper for handling and manipulation of delicate produce in horticultural applications

摘要

The task of autonomously gripping delicate objects such as fresh produce remains a challenge even in modern robotics. Current robotics grippers are mostly made of mechanical linkages and actuators which follow very structured trajectories. As these exhibit little mechanical compliance they can readily apply too much pressure as a point load, leading to blemishing or bruising of produce (eg. kiwifruit). In order to overcome this, this paper proposes a soft-robotic approach, which has the ability to morph and conform around the grasped object. This increases the contact area between the object and the gripper, resulting in a more equal distribution of force, and a lower effective contact pressure. Additionally, this allows for a more secure grip to be achieved. The proposed gripper design is inspired by the soft-touch of the human hand, which is presently the most suitable manipulator for fruit-picking tasks. The soft robotic device is manufactured from a composite of Ecoflex 00-30 Room Temperature Vulcanisation Rubber and polymer mesh. This paper describes the specification, design, manufacture and validation of the novel soft robotic gripper as it emerged from the conceptual phase into its application domain (kiwifruit gripping and manipulation). The physical results are crossexamined with those from FEA analysis.