An innovative robotic gripper for grasping and handling research

A planar robotic gripper suitable for research in the grasping and handling of a wide variety of objects has been developed. The design has two fingers, four links, and two actuators but can be directly extended to more links while keeping the number of actuators unchanged. This robotic end effector exhibits two distinctive features. First, it utilizes a fewer number of actuators than it has degrees of freedom, thus providing quantifiable savings in weight, size, complexity and cost. Second, it is capable of conforming to different shapes and sizes of objects through autonomous, sequential switching of the actuator drives between links. The design, construction and research applications of the hand are described. Experimental results with the robotic hand show close agreement with computer simulations