Assessment of contact characteristics of soft fingertip applied for multi-profile grasping

摘要

This paper presents experimental study of contact parameters for soft hemispherical fingertip pressed against target profiles. In design and development of soft robotic fingertips, in-depth knowledge of realistic contact parameter is required. Soft fingers are easily conformed to the geometry of the target profiles like human finger. In this work, fingertip is pressed against convex, concave and flat profiles experimentally with numerical validation. The magnitude of contact radius is calculated and compared for different profiles. From close observation it is observed that contact radius is higher for curved profiles when compared with a flat profile for a particular combination.