Hybrid-Driven Origami Gripper with Variable Stiffness and Finger Length

Zhuang Zhang; Weicheng Fan; Yongzhou Long; Jiabei Dai; Junjie Luo; Shujie Tang; Qiujie Lu; Xinran Wang; Hao Wang; Genliang Chen

doi:10.34133/cbsystems.0103

Hybrid-Driven Origami Gripper with Variable Stiffness and Finger Length

Cyborg Bionic Syst. 2024 Apr 9:5:0103. doi: 10.34133/cbsystems.0103. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Zhuang Zhang^{1

2}, Weicheng Fan¹, Yongzhou Long¹, Jiabei Dai¹, Junjie Luo¹, Shujie Tang¹, Qiujie Lu^{3

4}, Xinran Wang⁴, Hao Wang¹, Genliang Chen^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, and Shanghai Key Laboratory of Digital Manufacture for Thin-Walled Structures, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China.
² School of Engineering, Westlake University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310030, China.
³ Academy for Engineering and Technology, Fudan University, 200433, Shanghai, China.
⁴ Reds Lab, Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2DB, U.K.
⁵ META Robotics Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China.

Abstract

Soft grippers due to their highly compliant material and self-adaptive structures attract more attention to safe and versatile grasping tasks compared to traditional rigid grippers. However, those flexible characteristics limit the strength and the manipulation capacity of soft grippers. In this paper, we introduce a hybrid-driven gripper design utilizing origami finger structures, to offer adjustable finger stiffness and variable grasping range. This gripper is actuated via pneumatic and cables, which allows the origami structure to be controlled precisely for contraction and extension, thus achieving different finger lengths and stiffness by adjusting the cable lengths and the input pressure. A kinematic model of the origami finger is further developed, enabling precise control of its bending angle for effective grasping of diverse objects and facilitating in-hand manipulation. Our proposed design method enriches the field of soft grippers, offering a simple yet effective approach to achieve safe, powerful, and highly adaptive grasping and in-hand manipulation capabilities.