PFI-RP: Robotic Manipulation of Small, Delicate, and Curved Objects Using Tunable Dry Adhesion

这个创新研究伙伴关系（PFI-RP）项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是推进一项技术，使机器人能够操纵小、精致和弯曲的物体。处理这些在精密设备和先进电子设备中经常遇到的物体，在自动组装和包装过程中，当今存在的技术具有挑战性。这个PFI-RP项目将开发基于黏附的小型夹持器来解决这个痛点。提出的项目旨在开发具有动态可调附着力的小型化软抓取器，用于机器人操作小型，精致和弯曲的物体。这些柔软的抓手含有一种活性材料，其硬度可以通过电信号改变以匹配应用。夹持器的设计使得刚度变化导致接触面的附着力变化。这种附着力的可调性将被用于控制抓握小而精致的物体。通过力学和热建模，将设计出具有适当几何形状和尺寸的软夹持器，以便在响应时间、激活电压、物体尺寸和重量等多个指标上实现最佳性能。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 - Research Partnerships (PFI-RP) project is to advance a technology that enables the robotic manipulation of small, delicate, and curved objects. Handling such objects, which are frequently encountered in precision devices and advanced electronics, in automatic assembly and packaging processes is challenging with technologies that exist today. This PFI-RP project will develop miniaturized adhesion-based grippers to address this pain point. The proposed project aims to develop miniaturized soft grippers with dynamically tunable adhesion for robotic manipulation of small, delicate, and curved objects. These soft grippers contain an active material with a stiffness that can be changed through an electrical signal to match the application. The grippers are designed such that the stiffness change leads to a change in adhesion at the contact surface. This adhesion tunability will be exploited for controllably gripping small and delicate objects. Through mechanics and thermal modeling, the soft grippers will be designed with appropriate geometry and dimensions for optimal performance on multiple metrics including response time, activation voltage, object size and weight.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.