Multifunctional Three-finger Soft Gripper for Dexterous Operation

doi:10.3901/JME.2025.21.143

Abstract

Abstract: Soft grippers, with their inherent compliance, adaptability, and safety, have demonstrated advantages in robotic grasping and manipulation that traditional rigid mechanisms cannot match. This research presents a novel multifunctional pneumatically actuated three-finger soft robotic gripper, which achieves adaptive, safe grasping of fragile objects and dexterous manipulation. The gripper employs a dual-degree-of-freedom pneumatic coordinated actuation design, with each finger consisting of a bending actuator and a lateral swinging actuator. The bending actuator innovatively adopts an inclined pneumatic network structure, which, compared to the traditional vertical network structure, significantly enhances the bending angle and contact force by 19.5% and 20.1%, respectively. The lateral swinging actuator, inspired by biomimetic design, enables ±16.5° side-to-side motion similar to that of a human finger. A coupled mathematical model integrating kinematics and quasi-static mechanics is established based on the Mooney-Rivlin constitutive model for hyperelastic materials, accurately predicting the bending angles and contact forces of the soft fingers under pneumatic actuation (with theoretical and simulation errors less than 2% and 9.2%, respectively). Finite element simulations are conducted to investigate the performance of the soft fingers, revealing the influence of chamber inclination angle on bending angle and contact force. Finally, a prototype of the soft robotic hand is fabricated using 3D printing and molding techniques. Experiments demonstrated that the gripper could grasp objects of various sizes, shapes, materials, and weights, and perform dexterous tasks such as twisting open a bottle cap, thus validating the effectiveness of the structural design and control strategy.

Key words: soft gripper, pneumatic actuator, dexterous manipulation, adaptive grasping

CLC Number:

TG156

SUN Xiantao, ZHONG Mingsheng, GAO Chong, WANG Ao, CHEN Weihai. Multifunctional Three-finger Soft Gripper for Dexterous Operation[J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2025, 61(21): 143-151.

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