Similar to the end effectors for traditional rigid robots, those for soft robots are essential as the interacting media between the robots and their environments. Inspired by the forelegs of climbing animals, a passively adaptive soft gripper (ASG), with six claws and a compliant mechanism, is developed for grasping objects and attaching to rough surfaces. The design method, grasp adaptability, form closure, and force equilibrium of the ASG are presented and analyzed in this paper. Due to the compliance at each claw root, the ASG possesses a high passive adaption to various objects. With sharp hooks, a form closure may be achieved easily when the ASG grasps rough objects with structured or unstructured shapes. The ASG grasping an object constitutes an under-actuated system, the solution to which is difficult to obtain. The Monte Carlo method is suggested to achieve effective solutions for such systems, and the in-hull rate is proposed to evaluate the difficulty of finding solution. Tests and experiments with the ASG grasping various objects have verified the adaptability and reliability of the ASG. The analytic and experimental results show that the novel ASG may be used as a universal gripper for soft manipulators and a prospective attaching device for biped climbing soft robots.
Keywords: adaptive grasp; compliant mechanism; force equilibrium; soft gripper.
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