A Variable Stiffness and Transformable Entanglement Soft Robotic Gripper
Huayu Zhang, Tianle Pan, Jianshu Zhou, Boyuan Liang, Jing Shu, Puchen Zhu, Jiajun An, Yun-Hui Liu
Abstract
For objects with complex topological and geometrical features, stochastic topological grasping can be executed without the necessity for feedback or precise planning. However, this grasping method has two significant limitations. First, the technique's effectiveness is reduced when interacting with topologically and geometrically simple objects like spheres, cubes, and cylinders, due to the inherent variability in grasping patterns. Additionally, the method's low stiffness restricts its ability to securely handling heavier objects. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an entanglement soft robotic gripper with variable stiffness and two transformed grasping modes (entanglement and clamping modes). The gripper contains three filaments, which can enhance the stiffness through the mechanism of layer jamming. Furthermore, the entanglement mode and the clamping mode, can be transformed by adjusting the working length of the filaments. The grasping performance comparison with and without variable stiffness was carried out, and the results indicated that the implementation of variable stiffness led to a 149 % increase in payload weight. Through experimental validation, we successfully employed the gripper in variable stiffness and transformed modes to grasp items with various shapes and weights. Demonstration of grasping heavier objects and transforming between two grasping modes were also conducted to showcase the adaptability and versatility of the gripper.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{icra2025_avariablestiffne,
title = {A Variable Stiffness and Transformable Entanglement Soft Robotic Gripper},
author = {Huayu Zhang and Tianle Pan and Jianshu Zhou and Boyuan Liang and Jing Shu and Puchen Zhu and Jiajun An and Yun-Hui Liu and Xin Ma},
booktitle = {ICRA 2025},
year = {2025}
}