On the Use of Flexible Materials for Robot Gripping Application

A robot gripper is used for grasping and holding different components. Action of a gripper emulates working of fingers of a human hand. In this paper, first a brief review on flexible gripping systems is made. By incorporating flexibility in gripper, gripping relatively large weight of various shapes becomes possible. Four flexible materials are explored to apply to grip different objects, and comparison of force requirement for this is next reported. Maximum amount of weight that can be gripped with a flexible gripping material is also found out. Thermocole, among all four flexible gripping materials tested, needs the least grasping force to grasp a weight.