A Soft Robotic Gripper Module with 3D Printed Compliant Fingers for Grasping Fruits

Abstract

This study presents a soft robotic gripper module with 3D printed compliant fingers for grasping fruits. The proposed compliant gripper module is an underactuated two-finger sensor-less design which can be actuated by one linear actuator. A topology optimization method is used to synthesize the monolithic compliant finger. The topology optimized compliant finger is prototyped by 3D printing using flexible thermoplastic filament. The developed gripper module is mounted on a robot arm to pick and place a variety of fruits automatically via machine vision to demonstrate the effectiveness of the design. The results show the developed system can be used for automated grasping of fruits without causing surface damages. The proposed design is expected to be used to resolve the challenging issue for robotic automation of irregular and fragile objects.