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Design of a Three-Finger Underactuated Robotic Gripper Based on a Flexible Differential Mechanism

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Intelligent Robotics and Applications (ICIRA 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 14268))

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Abstract

Adaptive grippers are widely used in industrial automation, manufacturing, and other applications where objects being handled are often irregular in shape or size. Cost and control complexity are the two critical considerations in the design process of an adaptive gripper. To address these problems, a novel single-input-three-output (SITO) flexible differential mechanism with a two-degree-of-freedom (two-DOF) flexure hinge is proposed to develop a single-drive adaptive gripper that is low-cost and easy-to-control. This paper introduces the grasping structure and working principle of the proposed gripper before conducting the finite element simulation on the flexure hinge. Based on the analysis results, a gripper prototype is fabricated and tested to evaluate its grasping performance on various irregular objects. The experimental results show that this gripper is highly adaptive and capable of grasping objects of various shapes, making it a promising solution for industrial automation, manufacturing, and related robotic applications, etc.

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program of China under Grant 2022YFB4702501, and in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 52005001.

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Correspondence to Wenjie Chen .

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Sun, X., Gan, C., Chen, W., Chen, W., Liu, Y. (2023). Design of a Three-Finger Underactuated Robotic Gripper Based on a Flexible Differential Mechanism. In: Yang, H., et al. Intelligent Robotics and Applications. ICIRA 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 14268. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6486-4_46

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6486-4_46

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-99-6485-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-99-6486-4

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