SBIR Phase II: An Innovative Robotic Jamming Gripper

这个小型企业创新研究第二阶段项目将继续开发一种创新的机器人抓取技术，该技术利用颗粒状材料独特的卡住行为，使设备能够被动地符合不同形状的物体，然后真空硬化以刚性抓取它们。这些？卡爪？是一种独一无二的解决方案，用于使用单个夹持器灵活地抓取和操纵任意对象--这一需求出现在制造机器人、假肢以及越来越多的家用和医疗机器人中。在顶级科学期刊上发表的初步结果成功地在实验室环境中实施了这项技术。第一阶段和第二阶段的工作进一步证明了基于该技术的商业产品的技术和市场可行性。在第二阶段，研究目标是：1)回答原型和商业产品之间的关键剩余研究问题，2)通过将技术从原型阶段过渡到第一个Alpha产品来证明产品的可行性，以及3)通过为相邻的市场应用开发和测试原型来扩展这项技术的能力。该项目的成功完成将使该团队能够持续销售一系列相关产品。该项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力将通过在机器人领域的技术贡献来实现。第一个目标市场将是工业制造，重点放在物体形状变化普遍的任务上(例如，食品处理、制药、拾取垃圾箱和套件/组装)。替代的机器人抓取解决方案范围广泛(价格不断上涨)，从真空吸盘，到传统的咬合式抓取器，再到定制或特殊的抓取器，最后是通用的多指手。拟议的卡爪的简单性可能使价格比目前实现类似性能的卡爪降低两个数量级。这款抓手也是独一无二的，可以打开一个以前没有开发过的利基市场的大门？制造中的简单移动任务，由于生产量较小或频繁更换生产线，目前必须由人工完成。卡爪的灵活性和低成本使其成为更灵活和可重复使用的组件，而这种类型的解决方案是将机器人自动化引入美国许多规模较小的制造商所缺少的关键要素。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will continue the development of an innovative robotic gripping technology that leverages the unique jamming behavior of granular materials to enable a device that can passively conform to objects of varying shape and then vacuum harden to grip them rigidly. These ?jamming grippers? are a unique solution for the agile gripping and manipulation of arbitrary objects with a single gripper -- a need that occurs in manufacturing robotics, prosthetics, and increasingly in home and healthcare robotics. Preliminary results published in top scientific journals successfully implemented this technique in a laboratory setting. The Phase I and Phase IB efforts further demonstrated the technical and market feasibility of a commercial product based on this technology. In Phase II, the research objective are: 1) to answer the critical remaining research questions that stand between the prototypes and a commercial product, 2) to demonstrate product feasibility by transitioning the technology from the prototype stage to a first Alpha product, and 3) to expand the capabilities of this technology by developing and testing prototypes for adjacent market applications. Successful completion of this project will position the team for sustainable sales of a suite of related products.The broader impact/commercial potential of this project will be realized through technological contributions in the area of robotics. The first target market will be industrial manufacturing, focusing on tasks where variations in object shape are prevalent (e.g. food handling, pharmaceuticals, bin picking, and kitting/assembly). Alternative robotic gripping solutions range (in increasing price) from vacuum suction cups, to traditional jawed grippers, to customized or specialty grippers, and finally to general purpose multi-fingered hands. The simplicity of the proposed jamming gripper can potentially enable two orders of magnitude price reduction over current grippers that achieve similar performance. This gripper is also uniquely positioned to open the door to a previously untapped niche market ? simple movement tasks in manufacturing that must currently be performed by human laborers due to lower volumes or frequent line changes. The flexibility and low cost of a jamming gripper makes it a more agile and reusable component, and this type of solution is the key element that is missing for bringing robotic automation to many smaller scale manufacturers in the U.S.