PFI-TT: A Robotic Gripper with a Tunable Stiffness for Grasping Versatile Objects

PFI-TT：刚度可调的机器人夹具，用于抓取多种物体

• 批准号: 2016445
• 负责人: Hai-Jun Su
• 金额: $ 24.98万
• 依托单位: Ohio State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-08-15 至 2023-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2016445&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: PFI; TT; Robotic; Gripper; Tunable

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project offers a robotic prototype to perform tasks such as sorting, picking, and placing objects that are pervasive in e-commence, warehouse, agriculture automation, and manufacturing. If this robotic gripper is commercialized, it will help small and medium businesses rapidly adjust existing or establish new automation lines in response to market needs, reducing costs and enhancing their competitiveness in the global market. Moreover, the developed technology in the project may be also beneficial to other applications such as high performance prosthetic hands with a variable stiffness for enhanced load-carrying capacity. In the proposed broadening participation plan, Professor Su will work closely with coordinators of the Metro Early College High School (MECHS) in central Columbus to identify and recruit talented (especially minority and underrepresented) MECHS students to complete both a Summer Internship and Capstone Research Internship in the research lab. The proposed project aims to develop a scale-up prototype of a variable stiffness-compliant robotic gripper for versatile tasks in unstructured environments. Current gripper technologies offer either a high payload or a high adaptability, and this may limit their applications. The proposed variable stiffness gripper can be switched between a soft mode to a rigid mode on demand based on a recently developed layer jamming technology. The proposed applied research plan fills several knowledge gaps and overcomes key technical obstacles for commercialization. The applied research tasks are: (1) development of a scaling law to tailor design parameters for a specific performance metric; (2) design optimization of the compliant backbone to further improve the stiffness ratio and enhance robustness of the vacuum bag; (3) development of a scale-up prototype of the robotic gripper and demonstration with an industrial robotic manipulator. The technology combines the merits of rigid-body and soft grippers and may have both a high shape adaptability and a high payload capacity. This gripper technology offers key technical differentiators: significantly increased payload capacity and reduced power consumption in grasping.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这个创新-技术转化合作伙伴关系（PFI-TT）项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力提供了一个机器人原型，用于执行电子商务、仓库、农业自动化和制造业中普遍存在的分拣、拣选和放置物体等任务。如果这种机器人抓手实现商业化，将帮助中小企业根据市场需求快速调整现有或建立新的自动化生产线，降低成本，增强其在全球市场的竞争力。此外，该项目中开发的技术也可能有利于其他应用，例如具有可变刚度的高性能假手，以增强承载能力。在拟议的扩大参与计划中，苏教授将与哥伦布中部的麦德龙早期学院高中（MECHS）的协调员密切合作，以识别和招募有才华的（特别是少数民族和代表性不足）MECHS学生，以完成夏季实习和顶点研究实习在研究实验室。拟议的项目旨在开发一个规模扩大的原型的可变刚度兼容的机器人夹具在非结构化环境中的多功能任务。目前的抓取器技术要么提供高的有效载荷，要么提供高的适应性，这可能会限制它们的应用。提出的变刚度夹持器可以切换之间的软模式到刚性模式的需求的基础上，最近开发的层干扰技术。拟议的应用研究计划填补了几个知识空白，克服了商业化的关键技术障碍。应用研究的任务是：（1）开发一个比例法则，以定制设计参数的特定性能指标;（2）设计优化的顺应骨干，以进一步提高刚度比和增强真空袋的鲁棒性;（3）开发一个按比例放大原型的机器人夹具和演示与工业机器人机械手。该技术结合了刚性和柔性夹持器的优点，并且可以具有高形状适应性和高有效载荷能力。 该夹持器技术提供了关键的技术优势：显著提高了有效载荷能力，降低了抓持过程中的功耗。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。