Soft Pneumatic Pads Enable New Sensing and Actuation Capabilities in Soft-Rigid Grippers

Contact force sensing and grasp adaptation in soft robotic hands are still open challenges, although they represent fundamental requirements towards the achievement of delicate and accurate in-hand manipulation. In this paper, we present soft pneumatic pads that can be embedded into the rigid phalanges of a soft-rigid gripper to sense contact forces and consequently adapt the contact locations and grasping forces. Each pad is connected to a pressure sensor and can be independently inflated/deflated. The pads add sensing and actuation capabilities to the gripper. As a proof of concept, we present three applications where they are used for contact detection, in-hand manipulation, and grasp adjustment.