Electroadhesion-enhanced pneumatic soft gripper for multimode and delicate grasping

Abstract

This study addresses the limitations of conventional pneumatic soft grippers—restricted grasping versatility and compromised stability when handling irregular/massive objects due to insufficient structural stiffness—by proposing an electroadhesion-enhanced dual-pneumatic network (EDP) gripper. The innovation lies in a structurally optimized dual-pneuNet two-finger architecture, integrating slow pneumatic networks for rigidity and fast pneumatic networks for deformability. Key chamber parameters were optimized via Abaqus to enhance stiffness and grasping stability. The design further incorporates a COMSOL-optimized flexible electroadhesive film, enabling multimode grasping (pneumatic fingertip/enveloping, electroadhesion-based, and hybrid modes). Experimental results demonstrate the EDP gripper's ability to stably and adaptively handle fragile, flat, deformable, irregular, and asymmetric objects across diverse hardnesses, sizes, and masses. This synergy of structural optimization and electroadhesion advances soft robotics toward versatile, high-performance manipulation.