Soft Robotic Gripper for Agricultural Harvesting

AbstractHistorically robots have been a compilation of rigid parts or objects which move relative to one another to transfer motion. One of the main drawbacks of this classical method has been the physical restrictions and rigidity of the structure of the components. Conventional robots are made of rigid materials that limit their ability to elastically deform and adapt their shape to external constraints and obstacles. It is also harder to use these robots in any industry which require a certain degree of sensitivity and delicacy when interacting with the environment. Soft Robotics is a relatively new subfield of Robotics with incredible potential to change the industry due to their construction from highly compliant materials. Soft robots have increased flexibility and adaptability as well as improved safety when working around humans. In this work, we have described our attempts at the design and fabrication of few soft robotic grippers. We have experimented with three types of liquid silicone rubber materials with different properties and tried fabricating one-fingered, three-fingered and four-fingered soft pneumatic actuators. We have demonstrated grasping in lifting few objects of different shapes and sizes. The gripper developed has the potential to be used for harvesting in agricultural fields.KeywordsSoft roboticsLiquid silicone rubberAdaptive gripper