Optical micro parts, such as glass fibres, require handling and alignment accuracies down to the sub micrometer range. Addressing this task, one aim of the Fraunhofer IPT is the development of new concepts of active gripper systems. In this context a highly integrated, adaptive, rugged and economical gripper system particularly for accurate handling and alignment of flexible micro parts down to...

In advanced robotics applications, as those foreseen in space, some degree of dexterity and autonomy is necessary in order to safely and successfully execute tasks in unstructured environments. For this purpose, besides the kinematic configuration of the device other basic issues are the sensorial equipment and proper control strategies. This paper presents an experimental activity for the vali...

Parallel manipulators have a specific mechanical architecture where all the links are connected both at the base and at the gripper of the robot. By changing the lengths of these links we are able to control the position 1 of the gripper. In general for a given set of links lengths there is only one position for the gripper. But it may be suspected that in some In this paper position means posi...

The vacuum cup grippers operate using Bernoulli Principle for generating high-speed flow between the vacuum cup and product surface thereby creating vacuum which lifted the product. Feasibility observations are studied to demonstrate and obtain an overall understanding on the capability and limitations of the vacuum cup gripper. Most of the robot grippers are not easily applicable due to the fo...

Goals that have yet to have been realized in the field of modular robotics include low cost mass production, and scalability. Shape memory polymers are light weight, low-cost, and have a large degree of flexibility in material design. For these reasons these polymers have the potential to help reach current goals of modular robotics. The percent recovery and force of these materials for use in ...

Problem statement: Edge tracing is considered important for deformable object manipulation in order to spread and reveal the original shape of an object before it can be sorted. It is important in unfolding clothes to reveal its original state during sorting. Tracing in this study context involved tracing the clothes edge, with the robot arm movement based on feedback from sensors. Development ...

The gripper constitutes the end of the kinematic chain of an industrial robot and makes possible the interactions with the work environment. Although universal grippers with wide clamping ranges can be used for varied object shapes, in many cases they must be adapted to specific work-pieces shapes. The mechanical two-finger grippers with a single degree of freedom are the most usual device used...

Automatic handling of many types of food materials are required to realize the automation of production of commercially prepared box lunches. A printable soft gripper was developed for food handling which is simple to produce with a 3D printer. However, the sensing ability of the printable soft gripper was not discussed in previous research. In this paper, a novel method for estimating the gras...

This paper summarizes a concluded 5-year funded research project (1994–1999) addressing the automated handling and manipulation of limp material, without distortion, deformation or damage. A series of prototype gripper systems (xed-dimensioned and reconngurable) were developed and integrated with Adept Series manipulators to demonstrate the gripper applicability to the textiles and apparel indu...

This paper presents a new design of mobile micro manipulation system for robotic micro assembly where a compliant piezoelectric actuator based micro gripper is designed for handling the miniature parts. The compensation of misalignment during robotic peg-in-hole assembly is achieved by this compliant micro gripper because the piezoelectric actuator has capability of producing the displacement i...