DESIGN OF MECHANISMS WHICH GENERATE STRAIGHT-LINE AND PARALLEL MOTION; ROBOT GRIPPER DESIGN APPLICATIONS.

摘要

Mechanisms with prismatic joints are capable of producing straight-line and parallel motion, but wear and binding are inherent problems with these mechanisms which make them unsuitable for effective end effector design. The finger tips of a standard parallel jaw gripper move into the work surface as the gripper closes to grasp small workpieces and robot arm motion becomes necessary to avoid collision with the work surface. Two novel mechanisms for robot gripper design are developed in this paper, which produce straight-line and parallel motion with revolute and gear joints only. These gripper designs permit effective acquisition of small variable-width parts from a flat surface.