Self-Closing Suction Grippers for Industrial Grasping via Form-Flexible Design

2025-07-02

AI Summary

Traditional suction grippers exhibit poor sealing performance and limited adaptability when handling objects whose dimensions significantly deviate—either larger or smaller—from the suction cup’s nominal aperture. To address this, this paper proposes a morphologically adaptive, self-sealing suction gripper. The method integrates a hybrid-stiffness structure—comprising a soft elastomeric base and granular jamming effects—with vacuum-driven passive deformation, enabling autonomous lip contraction or expansion during evacuation without active control. This design optimally balances interfacial pressure and flow rate to ensure both adhesive stability and deformation robustness. Experimental results demonstrate stable grasping of objects as small as 54.5% of the cup’s aperture (e.g., an egg) with a load-to-weight ratio of 94.3, substantially extending the reliable size range for single-structure suction-based manipulation.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Manipulation
• Search and Optimization: Mixed Discrete/Continuous Search
• Computer Vision: Low Level & Physics-based Vision

Application Category

• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

Abstract

Shape-morphing robots have shown benefits in industrial grasping. We propose form-flexible grippers for adaptive grasping. The design is based on the hybrid jamming and suction mechanism, which deforms to handle objects that vary significantly in size from the aperture, including both larger and smaller parts. Compared with traditional grippers, the gripper achieves self-closing to form an airtight seal. Under a vacuum, a wide range of grasping is realized through the passive morphing mechanism at the interface that harmonizes pressure and flow rate. This hybrid gripper showcases the capability to securely grasp an egg, as small as 54.5% of its aperture, while achieving a maximum load-to-mass ratio of 94.3.

Problem

• Develop self-closing grippers for industrial grasping
• Handle objects varying significantly in size
• Achieve secure grasping with passive morphing mechanism

Innovation

• Form-flexible grippers for adaptive grasping
• Hybrid jamming and suction mechanism
• Passive morphing mechanism for wide grasping