A Soft Robotic Approach to Robust and Dexterous Grasping

Abstract

In this paper, we present a compliant robotic gripper, Edgy-2, with 4-DOF dexterity, enabling four grasping modes: parallel grasping, power grasping, finger-tip pinch and fully-actuated grasping. The robotic finger is based on soft-rigid-hybrid structures, combining fiber-reinforced soft pneumatic actuators with rigid joints, which exhibit reliable structural rigidity and grasping robustness while maintaining excellent adaptability and inherent compliance. With both grasping dexterity and grasping robustness, the Edgy-2 achieves excellent grasping reliability with various daily objects, from a fragile cherry to a 2 kg water bottled water. The relationship of design parameters and grasping strength is presented with analytical models. The performance of a prototype Edgy-2 is verified by dedicated experiments. The proposed hybrid dexterous grasping approach can be easily extended into different end-effector designs according to application requirements. The proposed mechanism for grasping provides excellent human-robot interaction safety and reliability.