A Soft-Rigid Hybrid Gripper With Lateral Compliance and Dexterous In-Hand Manipulation

Wenpei Zhu1; Chenghua Lu1; Qule Zheng1; Zhonggui Fang1; Haichuan Che1; Kailuan Tang1; Mingchao Zhu2; Sicong Liu1; Zheng Wang1

2022

10.1109/TMECH.2022.3195985

IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics   Impact Factor & Quartile

1941-014X

1941-014X

Soft grippers are receiving growing attention due to their compliance-based interactive safety and dexterity. Hybrid gripper with soft actuators enhanced by rigid constraints is receiving growing attention in soft gripper design. With rigid structural components actuated by soft actuators, they could achieve excellent grasping adaptability and payload while also being easy to model and control with conventional kinematics. However, existing works were mostly focused on achieving superior payload and perception with simple planar workspaces, resulting in far less dexterity compared with conventional grippers. In this work, we took inspiration from the human metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint and proposed a new hybrid gripper design with eight independent muscles. It was shown that adding the MCP complexity was critical in enabling a range of novel features in the hybrid gripper, including in-hand manipulation, lateral passive compliance, as well as new control modes. A prototype gripper was fabricated and tested on our proprietary dual-arm robot platform with vision-guided grasping. With very lightweight pneumatic bellows soft actuators, the gripper could grasp objects over 20 times its weight with lateral compliance. Using the dual-arm platform, highly anthropomorphic dexterous manipulations were demonstrated using two hybrid grippers, from tug of war on a rigid rod to passing a soft towel between two grippers using in-hand manipulation. Matching the novel features and performance specifications of the proposed hybrid gripper, the underlying modeling, actuation, control, and experimental validation details were also presented, offering a promising approach to achieving enhanced dexterity, strength, and compliance in robotic grippers.

Dual-arm manipulation grasping dexterity in-hand manipulation modeling and control soft grippers

SCI ; EI

English

First

Science, Technology, and Innovation Commission of Shenzhen Municipality[ZDSYS20200811143601004] ; Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation[2021A1515110658] ; NSFC[51975268]

Automation & Control Systems ; Engineering

Automation & Control Systems ; Engineering, Manufacturing ; Engineering, Electrical & Electronic ; Engineering, Mechanical

WOS:000840487500001

IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC

20223412601382

Bellows ; Compliance control ; Grippers ; Muscle ; Pneumatic actuators ; Pneumatics

Biological Materials and Tissue Engineering:461.2 ; Machine Components:601.2 ; Pneumatics:632.3 ; Specific Variables Control:731.3 ; Robotics:731.5 ; Control Equipment:732.1 ; Mechanics:931.1

ENGINEERING

Web of Science

1.Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Biomimetic Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Human Augmentation and Rehabilitation Robotics in Universities, and the Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
2.Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Wenpei Zhu,Chenghua Lu,Qule Zheng,et al. A Soft-Rigid Hybrid Gripper With Lateral Compliance and Dexterous In-Hand Manipulation[J]. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics,2022,PP(99):1-12.

Wenpei Zhu.,Chenghua Lu.,Qule Zheng.,Zhonggui Fang.,Haichuan Che.,...&Zheng Wang.(2022).A Soft-Rigid Hybrid Gripper With Lateral Compliance and Dexterous In-Hand Manipulation.IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics,PP(99),1-12.

Wenpei Zhu,et al."A Soft-Rigid Hybrid Gripper With Lateral Compliance and Dexterous In-Hand Manipulation".IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics PP.99(2022):1-12.