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，该技术利用颗粒材料的独特堵塞行为，使设备能够被动地适应不同形状的物体，然后真空硬化以刚性地抓取它们。这些吗？卡住夹子是一种独特的解决方案，可通过单个夹持器灵活夹持和操作任意物体-这是制造机器人、假肢以及越来越多的家用和医疗机器人的需求。发表在顶级科学期刊上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产品来证明产品可行性，以及3）通过开发和测试邻近市场应用的原型来扩展该技术的能力。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/商业潜力将通过机器人领域的技术贡献实现。第一个目标市场将是工业制造，专注于物体形状变化普遍的任务（例如食品处理，制药，垃圾箱拣选和配套/组装）。替代机器人抓取解决方案的范围（在不断增加的价格）从真空吸盘，到传统的颚式抓取器，到定制或专业抓取器，最后到通用多指手。所提出的干扰夹持器的简单性可以潜在地使两个数量级的价格降低超过实现类似性能的当前夹持器。这个夹具也是唯一的定位，打开大门，以前未开发的利基市场？在制造业中，由于产量较低或频繁的生产线更换，目前必须由人工执行的简单移动任务。夹持器的灵活性和低成本使其成为更灵活和可重复使用的组件，这种解决方案是将机器人自动化引入美国许多小型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.