Soft Fingers with Controllable Compliance

to Enable Realization of Low Cost Grippers

Keng-Yu Lin and Satyandra K. Gupta(B)

Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering,

University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA
{kengyuli,skgupta}@usc.edu

1 Introduction
Grippers are needed to manipulate objects using robotic arms. In many appli-
cations, grippers need to meet the following three criteria:

Grippers need to conform to shape of objects being manipulated to handle

irregularly shaped objects.
Grippers need to apply force on the object or resist the gravity force (e.g.,
need to be able to lift heavy objects).
Grippers need to be low cost to enable new applications.

Traditional multi-finger grippers with built-in sensors are able to the meet the
first two requirements. However, they tend to be expensive. Robotic grippers
based on the jamming of granular material are able to meet the first and third
requirements. However, they cannot apply large compressive force on the object.
Recently there has been significant interest in grippers with soft fingers [19].
We believe that grippers with soft fingers can meet all three requirements
listed above. This paper reports redesign of a conventional soft finger by inte-
grating a structural member that can be used to control its compliance. Our
focus is on a design that is easier to manufacture and low cost. We have built
a three-fingered pneumatically actuated gripper that only requires simple pneu-
matic actuation. Our gripper is attached to a UR5 robot arm. The robot arm is
able to lift heavy objects using the new gripper.

2 Approach

We are interested in developing a design that is pneumatically actuated to ensure

that it is compatible with the existing soft finger designs. To design the structural
member with controllable compliance, we decided to only pursue design concepts
that can be actuated by air either with pressure or vacuum.

c Springer International Publishing AG 2017


M. Mangan et al. (Eds.): Living Machines 2017, LNAI 10384, pp. 544550, 2017.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-63537-8 48

kengyuli@usc.edu
 Soft Fingers with Controllable Compliance to Enable Realization 545

Fig. 1. Sectional view of compliant finger.

The main idea behind our soft robotic fingers lies in embedded sealed chamber
which is made up of a non-stretchable polymer sheet. The chamber is filled with
floating compliant sheets. When air is pumped out to create vacuum inside
the sealed chamber, floating sheets inside the sealed chamber adhere to each
other, increasing the friction due to an increase in the contact area. When the
structural member is set in low stiffness mode, floating sheets can easily slide
with respect to each other due to the sheet separation created by positive air
pressure. If air is vacuumed out of the chamber, the sheets are stacked together.
This prevents sheets from sliding over each other. This leads to the structural
member appearing stiff under bending loads. By controlling the vacuum inside
the chamber, we can control the stiffness of the structural member and the finger.
Figure 1 shows the design concept. The design has been realized by using in-
mold assembly process. Molds were printed using FDM process. Figure 2 shows
the traditional soft finger. Figure 3(a) shows the soft finger and structural ele-
ment with controllable stiffness. Soft finger is actuated using positive air pressure.
Structural element is actuated using negative air pressure. Figure 3(b) shows the
final assembly of the finger. Our design allows easy replacement of sheet media
to control stiffness.

Fig. 2. Traditional soft finger which has only positive air pressure actuator.

kengyuli@usc.edu
546 K.-Y. Lin and S.K. Gupta

(a) (b)

Fig. 3. Compliant soft finger which has both positive air pressure actuator, and nega-
tive air pressure actuator. (a) The finger has 3D printed base, (b) the finger is covered
with Silicone rubber.

3 Results

Figure 4 shows how the soft finger behaves under low stiffness mode. Figure 5
shows that the finger is unable to apply much force on a test cantilever beam
under low stiffness mode. Figure 6 shows that the finger is able to apply sig-
nificant force under the high stiffness mode. Figure 7 shows the side by side
comparison of low stiffness and high stiffness modes. We estimate that under
the high stiffness mode the finger is able to apply 4.6 times more force than the
low stiffness mode.

Fig. 4. Bending test of a single compliant soft finger kept in low stiffness mode under
positive air pressure.

kengyuli@usc.edu
 Soft Fingers with Controllable Compliance to Enable Realization 547

(a) (b) (c)

Fig. 5. (a) Initial position of a soft compliant finger with respect to a cantilever beam.
(b) The finger was kept in low stiffness mode after actuation, and moved to touch
the cantilever beam. (c) The finger was moved down by the robotic arm along the
vertical axis.

Fig. 6. The soft compliant finger was kept in high stiffness mode after actuation, and
it was moved down by robotic arm along the vertical axis.

Fig. 7. Force exerted by finger in low stiffness mode is 0.72 N, and the force exerted
by finger in high stiffness mode is 3.34 N.

kengyuli@usc.edu
548 K.-Y. Lin and S.K. Gupta

Figure 8 shows the ability of the gripper to lift heavy weight. Video for the
gripper mounted on UR-5 robot can be seen at https://youtu.be/YutKQs6W95g.
Figure 9 shows different kinds of objects that can be grasped by this gripper.

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Fig. 8. Heavy payload grasped by compliant finger. The toolbox is weight 4.5 Kg. The
compliant fingers are kept in high stiffness mode after actuation and can pick the
toolbox.

kengyuli@usc.edu
 Soft Fingers with Controllable Compliance to Enable Realization 549

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

(e) (f)

(g) (h)

Fig. 9. Objects grasped by the compliant fingers: (a) CD, (b) Teflon tape, (c) Porcelain
cup, (d) Plastic bottle, (e) Laptop battery, (f) Screwdriver, (g) Wrench, and (h) Heat
gun.

kengyuli@usc.edu
550 K.-Y. Lin and S.K. Gupta

References
1. Amend, J.R., Brown, E., Rodenberg, N., Jaeger, H.M., Lipson, H.: A positive pres-
sure universal gripper based on the jamming of granular material. IEEE Trans.
Robot. 28(2), 341350 (2012)
2. Deimel, R., Brock, O.: A novel type of compliant and underactuated robotic hand
for dexterous grasping. Int. J. Robot. Res. 35(13), 161185 (2016)
3. Galloway, K.C., Becker, K.P., Phillips, B., Kirby, J., Licht, S., Tchernov, D., Wood,
R.J., Gruber, D.F.: Soft robotic grippers for biological sampling on deep reefs. Soft
Robot. 3(1), 2333 (2016)
4. Homberg, B.S., Katzschmann, R.K., Dogar, M.R., Rus, D.: Haptic identification
of objects using a modular soft robotic gripper. In: 2015 IEEE/RSJ International
Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 16981705. IEEE (2015)
5. Manti, M., Hassan, T., Passetti, G., DElia, N., Laschi, C., Cianchetti, M.: A bioin-
spired soft robotic gripper for adaptable and effective grasping. Soft Robot. 2(3),
107116 (2015)
6. Wall, V., Deimel, R., Brock, O.: Selective stiffening of soft actuators based on jam-
ming. In: 2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA),
pp. 252257. IEEE (2015)
7. Yap, H.K., Lim, J.H., Goh, J.C.H., Yeow, C.H.: Design of a soft robotic glove for
hand rehabilitation of stroke patients with clenched fist deformity using inflatable
plastic actuators. J. Med. Dev. 10(4), 044504 (2016)
8. Zhou, X., Majidi, C., OReilly, O.M.: Soft hands: An analysis of some gripping
mechanisms in soft robot design. Int. J. Solids Struct. 64, 155165 (2015)
9. Johnson, L., Bruck, H.A., Gupta, S.K.: Design, fabrication, and characterization of
a soft multi-fingered hand. In: ASME 2016 International Mechanical Engineering
Congress and Exposition, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (2016)

kengyuli@usc.edu