A novel bio-inspired modular gripper for in-hand manipulation

In the automation industry, in-hand manipulation is a frequently required task which needs a significant dexterity of grippers. Operations such as object twisting, re-grasp and repositioning with correct posture are the major challenges driving the gripper design and which determine its complexity. This paper proposes a new bio-inspired modular gripper which is capable to provide an object with motions of rotation about two independent axes. The proposed gripper is a modular device made of four identical fingers each one having two DOFs. Moreover, a proper mechanism was conceived to move two fingers out of four so as to ensure the grasping. In this research, the feasibility of the idea is proved by means of simulations in a multibody environment.