The DressGripper: A Collaborative Gripper With Electromagnetic Fingertips for Dressing Assistance

摘要

This letter introduces a collaborative gripper designed for safe interactions during wearing operations. In a robotic system helping people to get dressed, two main goals have to be achieved: <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">i)</i> the gripper that potentially comes in contact with the person has to be intrinsically safe and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ii)</i> the gripper should be able to keep the cloth during dressing, e.g. while passing the arm inside the sleeve of a jacket. This letter proposes the DressGripper, a gripper that addresses these issues by combining a compliant and safe structure with an additional magnetic actuation at the fingertips. This combination enables a soft interaction with the robot while guaranteeing the necessary grasping tightness. Experiments with the proposed prototype demonstrate its applicability in robotic dressing assistance scenarios.