A Crab-Inspired Soft Gripper with Single-Finger Dexterous Grasping Capabilities
Yunce Zhang, Haobin Lv, Yixiang Liu, Zhe Min, Shizhao Zhou, Tao Wang, Shiqiang Zhu, Rui Song
Abstract
Soft grippers conform to the shape and surface properties of the objects to be grasped, effectively avoiding damage to soft and fragile items. Despite the variety of existing soft gripper designs, their structures lack sufficient flexibility for effectively grasping slender objects or operating in narrow spaces. To address these challenges, we propose a soft gripper with single-finger grasping capabilities, inspired by the structure of crab claws. The structural design and the fabrication method of the gripper are introduced, and the analytical bending model is derived. Experiments are conducted under typical operating conditions to validate the model, and the results indicate that the measured data are in good accordance with the predicted responses. Furthermore, a series of grasping experiments are carried out to test the single-finger grasping capabilities of the proposed soft gripper. The results indicate that the proposed soft gripper can efficiently and stably grasp slender or irregular objects with a single finger. In particular, it demonstrates suitability for operations in narrow spaces and shows potential for handling complex tasks. This innovative design effectively reduces the complexity of the system, while exhibiting promising capabilities in grasping slender or irregular objects and operating within restricted spaces.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{iros2025_acrabinspiredsof,
title = {A Crab-Inspired Soft Gripper with Single-Finger Dexterous Grasping Capabilities},
author = {Yunce Zhang and Haobin Lv and Yixiang Liu and Zhe Min and Shizhao Zhou and Tao Wang and Shiqiang Zhu and Rui Song},
booktitle = {IROS 2025},
year = {2025}
}