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

这个创新伙伴关系-技术转换（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来执行诸如在电子商务、仓库、农业自动化和制造业中普遍存在的分类、挑选和放置物体等任务。如果这种机械手商业化，它将帮助中小企业根据市场需求快速调整现有的或建立新的自动化生产线，降低成本，提高他们在全球市场上的竞争力。此外，该项目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，苏教授将与哥伦布市中心Metro Early College High School （MECHS）的协调员密切合作，以确定和招募有才华的（特别是少数族裔和代表性不足的）MECHS学生，在研究实验室完成暑期实习和Capstone研究实习。该项目旨在开发一种可变刚度柔性机器人抓手的放大原型，用于非结构化环境中的多功能任务。目前的夹持器技术要么提供高载荷，要么提供高适应性，这可能会限制它们的应用。该变刚度夹持器基于一种新开发的分层干扰技术，可以根据需要在软模和刚性模之间切换。提出的应用研究计划填补了一些知识空白，克服了商业化的关键技术障碍。应用研究任务是：(1)建立一个标度律，为特定的性能指标定制设计参数；(2)对柔性骨架进行设计优化，进一步提高真空袋的刚度比，增强其稳健性；(3)研制了机械手的放大样机，并在工业机械手上进行了演示。该技术结合了刚体夹持器和软夹持器的优点，具有高度的形状适应性和高载荷能力。这种夹持器技术提供了关键的技术区别：显著提高了有效载荷能力，降低了抓取时的功耗。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

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.