Enhancing versatility and safety of industrial grippers with adaptive robotic fingers

This paper introduces a novel concept for a (self-)adaptive, a.k.a. underactuated, finger which presents the particularity of exploiting the traditional motion generated by standard robotic grippers for actuation. The kinematic structure of this finger allows for seizing objects of various shapes in both enveloping and precision grasps without having any actuator in its joints. Following a kinetostatic analysis, the forces generated by the finger will be obtained and analyzed. The performance of a practical implementation of the design will be subsequently evaluated and compared with another architecture inspired by a commercially available product. Finally, collision modes for safe human interaction will be presented and followed by the demonstration of a prototype.