Design Summary and Analysis with Thesis Final

The article “This Soft Robotic Gripper Can Screw in Your Light Bulbs for You” (2017) introduces a revolutionary robotic arm and its features. Designed and built by the engineering team from the University of California San Diego (UCSD), the gripper is a robotic gripper capable, but not limited to controlling the object it is handling. According to Michael T. Trolley, a roboticist at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego who spearheaded the engineering team, the gripper is designed to emulate a biological hand. One of the main features is the ability to manipulate and model objects. Consisting of three fingers, each finger has a total of “three soft flexible pneumatic chambers”, making manipulation possible. The article also states that each finger is covered with a “smart, sensing skin” embedded with “conducting nanotube” sensors, which react to the change of conductivity caused by flexing of fingers, effectively generating data of the object it holds. The data generated is then passed to a control board where the 3D modelling of the object is done through the combination of 2D image slices.

Compared to the UCSD robotic gripper, innovations that are already out in the market are also equipped with two key elements, twisting and sensing. However, the UCSD robotic gripper outshines the octopus-inspired continuum arm robot by Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia and the “Gifu Hand III” by Gifu University, with an additional aspect: the ability to craft a 3D model of the manipulated object with just the raw data from the sensor data inputs.

Like the UCSD gripper, the octopus-inspired continuum arm robot introduced in the article “Dynamic modelling and control of an octopus inspired multiple continuum arm robot” (Kang, Branson, Guglielmino & Caldwell, 2012) has a similar approach of using biological limbs as a primary design aspect. Comprising two elements namely twisting and sensing presented as one, the octopus-inspired arm utilizes a total of “20 segments of parallel actuation”. This enables the continuum arms to achieve multiple degrees of freedom, making it “capable of generating archetypal locomotion patterns such as crawling and swimming”. With the ability to perform such complex motions, there would not be any issue achieving the ‘twisting and ‘sensing’ capabilities the UCSD robotic gripper possesses. While its complexity rivals that of the UCSD robotic gripper, it still lacks in one aspect which is the ability to craft a 3D model with just raw data from its sensor inputs.

Similarly to the octopus-inspired continuum arm robot, an end effector described in the article titled “Humanoid Robot Hand and its Applied Research” (Kawasaki & Tetsuya, 2018), is designed to be capable of replacing a human hand. The five fingered humanoid hand named “Gifu Hand III”, is driven by built-in servomotors which makes it capable of dexterous manipulation of objects. Comprising of multiple joints with 16 degrees of freedom, manipulation of objects is made possible. Each finger also has built-in tactile and force sensors which aid in manipulating an object. The article also states that its grasping strategy, which is power and precision grasp, can handle and manipulate objects ranging from a tennis ball to a surgical knife. In conclusion, the ability to perform tasks with such precision, the “Gifu Hand III” would too, have effectively achieved the ‘twisting’ and ‘sensing’ capabilities the UCSD robotic gripper possesses. This design, however, lacks the ability to craft a 3D model as compared to the UCSD gripper.

While both the octopus-inspired continuum arm and the “Gifu Hand III” have capabilities comparable to that of the UCSD robotic gripper, they still lack in one main aspect. The ability to craft a 3D model with only sensor data inputs. With such ability in place that enables the UCSD robotic gripper to identify the object it is manipulating, it stands out among the rest and is a breakthrough in the current world of robotics.

References

Kang, R., Branson, D. T., Gulielmino, E., & Caldwell, D. G. (2012). Dynamic modelling and control of an octopus inspired multiple continuum arm robot . Computer & Mathematics with Applications, 64(5), 1004–1016. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0898122112002234

Kawasaki, H. & Mouri, T. (2019). Humanoid Robot Hand and its Applied Research. Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics. 31. 16-26. 10.20965/jrm.2019.p0016. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331232366_Humanoid_Robot_Hand_and_its_Applied_Research

University of California, San Diego. (2017). This soft robotic gripper can screw in your light bulbs for you. Retrieved from https://phys.org/news/2017-10-soft-robotic-gripper-bulbs.html?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Phys.org_TrendMD_1

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