Design of a New Soft Robot Hand for Grasping and Sorting Operation

Abstract

This paper presents the design and fabrication of a new soft robot hand for grasping and sorting operation. The soft hand is driven by five pneumatic actuators. The designed soft hand structure is evaluated by conducting simulation study with finite-element analysis. A prototype of the soft hand is fabricated and combined with a collaborative robot arm (Universal Robot UR5) to construct a soft robotic manipulator. It can be used to grasp any shaped object in certain space by providing high safety and high adaptability. In addition, as an intelligent visual servo system using deep learning, the Solomon AccuPick system is added to the robot hand, which can quickly recognize the object, guide the robot hand to approach the target object, and finally complete the grasping and sorting work.