Dynamic Capture Using a Traplike Soft Gripper With Stiffness Anisotropy

Yang, Shangkui; Zhou, Yongxiang; Walker, Ian D.; Yang, Chenghao; Branson, David T.; Song, Zhibin; Dai, Jian Sheng; Kang, Rongjie

Abstract

Dynamic capture is a common skill that humans have practiced extensively but is a challenging task for robots in which sensing, planning, and actuation must be tightly coordinated to deal with targets of diverse shapes, sizes, and velocity. In particular, the impact force may cause serious damage to a rigid gripper and even its carrier, e.g., a robotic arm. Existing soft grippers suffer from low speed and force to actively respond to capturing dynamic targets. In this article, we propose a soft gripper capable of efficient capture of dynamic targets, taking inspiration from the biological structures of multitentacled animals or plants. The presented gripper uses a cluster of tentacles to achieve an omnidirectional envelope and high tolerance to dynamic target during the capturing process. In addition, a stiffness anisotropy property is implemented to the tentacle structure to form a “trap” making it easy for the targets to enter yet difficult to escape. We also present an analytical model for the tentacle structure to describe its deformation during the collision with a target. In experiments, we construct a robotic prototype and demonstrate its ability to capture dynamic targets.

Citation

Yang, S., Zhou, Y., Walker, I. D., Yang, C., Branson, D. T., Song, Z., …Kang, R. (2023). Dynamic Capture Using a Traplike Soft Gripper With Stiffness Anisotropy. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 28(3), 1337-1346. https://doi.org/10.1109/tmech.2022.3219108

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 30, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Nov 15, 2022
• Publication Date: 2023-06
• Deposit Date: Nov 17, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 17, 2022
• Journal: IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics
• Print ISSN: 1083-4435
• Electronic ISSN: 1941-014X
• Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 28
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 1337-1346
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/tmech.2022.3219108
• Keywords: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Computer Science Applications, Control and Systems Engineering
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/13749922
• Publisher URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9952167
• Additional Information: © 2022 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.