Self-Closing Suction Grippers for Industrial Grasping via Form-Flexible Design

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel form-flexible, self-closing suction gripper that passively morphs to adaptively grasp objects of varying sizes in industrial settings, enhancing versatility and grip security.

Contribution

The work presents a hybrid jamming and suction mechanism enabling a self-closing, shape-morphing gripper that adapts passively to object sizes, improving grasping flexibility.

Findings

Successfully grasped objects as small as 54.5% of aperture size

Achieved a maximum load-to-mass ratio of 94.3

Demonstrated secure grasping of various object sizes

Abstract

Shape-morphing robots have shown benefits in industrial grasping. We propose form-flexible grippers for adaptive grasping. The design is based on the hybrid jamming and suction mechanism, which deforms to handle objects that vary significantly in size from the aperture, including both larger and smaller parts. Compared with traditional grippers, the gripper achieves self-closing to form an airtight seal. Under a vacuum, a wide range of grasping is realized through the passive morphing mechanism at the interface that harmonizes pressure and flow rate. This hybrid gripper showcases the capability to securely grasp an egg, as small as 54.5% of its aperture, while achieving a maximum load-to-mass ratio of 94.3.