A dexterous robotic gripper for autonomous grasping

In advanced robotics applications in unstructured environments (e.g. those foreseen in space) some degree of dexterity and autonomy is necessary in order to safely and successfully execute the required tasks. With this respect, besides the kinematic configuration, important aspects to be considered in the design of robotic end effectors are the sensorial equipment and proper control strategies. In this paper, an activity for designing and experimenting a gripper for this operations in unstructured environments is reported, and laboratory results are presented and discussed.