Physics

Control engineering

Degrees of freedom (physics and chemistry)

Workspace

Contact force

Underactuation

Engineering

GRASP

Artificial intelligence

Control (management)

Programming language

Grippers

Computer science

Tactile sensor

Revolute joint

Quantum mechanics

Mechanism (biology)

Computer vision

Control theory (sociology)

Mechanical engineering

Robot

IEEE Transactions on Robotics

The ability to grasp a wider range of objects in size and shape directly relates to the performance of robotic grippers. Adapting to complex geometries of objects requires large degrees of freedom to allow complex configurations. However, complexity in controlling many individual joints leads to introduction of underactuated mechanisms, in which traditional finger designs composed of revolute joints allow only flexion/extension motions. In this article, we propose a length-adjustable linkage mechanism in the underactuated finger controlled by an antagonistic tendon pair. The resulting gripper can elongate the fingers for an increased task space or shorten them for a finer spatial resolution. For tactile sensing, hyperelastic soft sensors are used to stretch with finger elongation. Contact pressures measured by the soft sensors are used in force-feedback control for which either the joint angles or the link lengths are adjusted. Lastly, a multimodal control scheme that combines elongation and flexion modes is demonstrated with tasks of dexterous manipulation.

Elongatable Gripper Fingers With Integrated Stretchable Tactile Sensors for Underactuated Grasping and Dexterous Manipulation