A Robot Gripper in Polymeric Material for Solid Micro-Meso Parts

This paper proposes a robot gripper in polymeric material for solid micro-meso parts. The gripper is developed using a light-weight, highly deformable and low cost material, that allows elastic deformations. The proposed solution consists of a simple geometry, incorporating the complexity of the mechanical transmission in the non-linear high deformations of the flexible elements of the device. This choice permits to grip multi-sizes objects. The design approach focuses on Ludwick material model, that describes deformable materials with a nonlinear elastic behavior. The kinematics of the gripper is presented and the results are verified with the finite element analysis. Finally, the gripper was fabricated and validated through a set of experimetal tests. The obtained resulsts confirmed the theoretical and simultion models. The maximum opening and force of the gripping jaws are 1,500 μm and 155 mN, repsectively. Nevetheless further performances may be obtained using different geometrical choices developed in the kinematic analysis.