Design and analysis of a soft spiral gripper

Continuum robots have been gaining popularity in recent years for their umpteen advantages. Soft robots are a class of continuum robots which are made of squishy materials which have the added benefit of being innocuous to humans. Soft robotic grippers are one of the major application of soft robots as they have the ability to conform and adapt their structure to the object to be grasped. This work presents a bio-inspired technique to increase contact area while grasping and handling long slender objects by helically twisting around them. An embodiment of such a spiral gripper utilizes unique configurations of pneumatically actuated Fiber Reinforced Elastomeric Enclosures which has a range of motions like extension, rotation, contraction. This work presents a detailed analysis technique using Cosserat beam theory to estimate the normal contact force exerted by the spiral gripper on cylindrical objects.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Systems & Entrepreneurial Engr

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2017

Author dc:creator

• Uppalapati, Naveen Kumar

Contributors dc:contributor

• Krishnan, Girish

• Soft robots
• Soft Grippers
• Cosserat beams
• Bio-inspired Robots

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2016 Naveen Kumar Uppalapati

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/95613

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/95613