This paper describes a novel microgripper, fabricated in superelastic alloy (Ni50.8Ti49.2) by wired micro Electro Discharge Machining (μEDM). The main features of the new microgripper are fabrication technology (μEDM) and exploited material (superelastic alloy); the gripper was sensorized with commercial semiconductor strain-gauges and implemented in the force-feedback micromanipulation worksta...

Automatic handling of many types of food materials are required to realize the automation of production of commercially prepared box lunches. A printable soft gripper was developed for food handling which is simple to produce with a 3D printer. However, the sensing ability of the printable soft gripper was not discussed in previous research. In this paper, a novel method for estimating the gras...

This paper summarizes a concluded 5-year funded research project (1994–1999) addressing the automated handling and manipulation of limp material, without distortion, deformation or damage. A series of prototype gripper systems (xed-dimensioned and reconngurable) were developed and integrated with Adept Series manipulators to demonstrate the gripper applicability to the textiles and apparel indu...

In this work, we present a generic approach to optimize the design of a parametrized robot gripper including both selected gripper mechanism parameters, and parameters of the finger geometry. We suggest six gripper quality indices that indicate different aspects of the performance of a gripper given a CAD model of an object and a task description. These quality indices are then used to learn ta...

We present a planner for a robot to keep an object stable under a sequence of external forces. We assume a robot with multiple manipulators, with a gripper at the end of each manipulator. We make two key contributions: First, given an external force, we propose a method to check the feasibility of gripper placements on the object to resist the force. This method takes into account both the mani...

This paper is a summary of the recently accomplished research work on flexible gripping systems. The goal is to develop a gripper which can be used for a great amount of geometrically variant workpieces. The economic aspect is of particular importance during the whole development. The high flexibility of the gripper is obtained by three parallel used principles. These are human and computer bas...

The gripper cylinder that provides braced force for Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) might fail due to severe vibration when the TBM excavates in the tunnel. Early fault diagnosis of the gripper cylinder is important for the safety and efficiency of the whole tunneling project. In this paper, an online condition monitoring system based on the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) method is established ...

This paper describes the development of a novel vision-based grasping system for unknown objects based on range images. We realize a synthesis of the calculated grasp points with a 3D model of a hand prosthesis, which we are using as gripper. We locally find grasp point candidates based on the shape of the object and validate the globally by checking collisions between the gripper and surroundi...

This paper describes the study of a gripper using the surface tension effects to pick and place the 0.5mm or 0.3mm diameter balls of a millimetric watch bearing. Two liquid supply strategies have been tested (pressure drive and tip dip). The effects of the coating (through the measurement of the contact angles), the presence of an internal channel and the size of the gripper have been studied. ...