Capacitive Sensing for a Gripper With Gecko-Inspired Adhesive Film

Abstract

We present a capacitive sensor suitable for a gripper that uses thin films of gecko-inspired adhesives. The sensor is fabricated directly on the films and measures the area over which the adhesive makes intimate contact. In experiments, a new underactuated gripper uses adhesive films to acquire and hold objects having a variety of shapes and textures. Using the adhesive films, the gripper achieves 2.6 × greater pullout force on rough surfaces as compared to using soft rubber. For a good grip, as the applied load increases, the films adhere more tightly to object surfaces and the local capacitance increases at contact regions. With six taxels per finger, the sensor can also detect whether the contact pattern of a grasp matches the expectations.