Ph.D.

Seminar and Technical Writing Seminar

on
Preliminary Design and Fabrication of Bio inspired Low Cost Hybrid Soft-Rigid
Robotic Hand

Presented by
Golak Bihari Mahanta (516ID1001)
Research Scholar (Ph.D.)

Under Supervision
of
Dr. B.B.V.L.Deepak (Supervisor) Prof. B.B.Biswal (Co-Supervisor)
Department of Industrial Design Department of Industrial Design

DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN NIT ROURKELA

 Organization of the Presentation
1. Introduction
2. Overview of the previous work
3. Materials and Methods
4. Results and Discussion
5. Conclusions
References

DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN NIT ROURKELA 2

 Introduction
• About 98% of the industrial gripper (rigid gripper) used for the material handling are two finger
grippers powered either by pneumatic, electric or hydraulic medium. Two finger rigid grippers
are heavily used in the industrial applications due to its design simplicity and low cost.

• Due to the more research and development in the field of soft materials, there is a shift towards
the development of the soft robots which can be used within the human environments.

• Although some of the existed hybrid manipulators consist of rigid and soft material, only the
joints are made of soft materials. Another drawback of the available hybrid grippers is an
complicated design and high development cost due to which it is not adequately explored.

DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN NIT ROURKELA 3

 Overview of the previous work
An exhaustive survey conducted to find the research status, i.e., what are the development already
existed on the robotic gripper has been undertaken. We categorized the existed robotic gripper into
three categories according to the nature of the material used, i.e., rigid, soft and hybrid robotic
gripper.

Robotic Gripper

Rigid Gripper Soft Gripper Hybrid Gripper

Fig. 1: (a) Rigid Gripper [11-12], (b) Soft gripper and (c) Hybrid gripper [8]

DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN NIT ROURKELA 4

 Materials and Methods

a b

Fig. 2. (a) The position a hybrid gripper in between the soft and rigid gripper, (b) Ease of Hand Manipulation Vs. Universal
Grasping between the soft and rigid gripper
DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN NIT ROURKELA 5
 Materials and Methods
Finger design of the proposed robotic hand

Each finger consists of three parts as the backbone of the proposed gripper connected by preloaded
springs. The three parts of the proposed robotic hand resemble the three phalanges of the human finger
such as MCP to PIP, PIP to DIP, and Distal phalange.

Fig. 3. Conceptual design of a single finger of Fig. 4. Jamming principle

the proposed hybrid robotic hand
DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN NIT ROURKELA 6
 Materials and Methods
Selection of jamming particles

Fig. 5. Different particles used to select the best particle, Fig. 6. Jamming force developed for different particles used (a
(a) Mustard Seed, (b) Mung Bean, (c) Chia Seed, (d) Black left bar without particle, right bar with particle)
Gram

DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN NIT ROURKELA 7

 Materials and Methods
Overall Design of the Robot Hand

Fig. 7. Schematic diagram of the proposed Fig. 8. Design and dimensions of the rigid links
robotic hand of the proposed robotic hand

DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN NIT ROURKELA 8

 Results and Discussion

Fig. 9. Developed prototype of the proposed robotic hand

DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN NIT ROURKELA 9

 Results and Discussion

Fig. 110rasping posture for different objects, (a) Smiley ball grasp with the tip, (b) Cylindrical container, (c) Smiley ball with
evolving grasp, (d) Grasping a black tape, (e) Plastic Bottle, and (f) Fresh apple
DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN NIT ROURKELA 10
 Conclusions

1. A novel design and development of three fingers low cost, underactuated

robotic hand based on the soft-rigid hybrid materials and actuated by a hybrid
mechanism of passive jamming of granular particles along with the tendon-
driven mechanism is developed for grasping a wide variety of objects.
2. The soft portion is developed using ecoflex 00-30 whereas the flexible joints
are developed using dragon skin silicone rubber.
3. Despite the capability of the developed robotic hand, it faces some
shortcomings such as the bending of the distal phalanges and leakage of the
granular particles during higher pressure.

DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN NIT ROURKELA 11

 References
[1] J.K. Salisbury, B. Roth, Kinematic and Force Analysis of Articulated Mechanical Hands, J. Mech. Transm. Autom. Des. 105 (1983) 35. doi:10.1115/1.3267342.
[2] S.C. Jacobsen, E.K. Iversen, D.F. Knutti, R.T. Johnson, K.B. Biggers, Design of the UTAH/MIT dextrous hand, Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Autom. 3 (1986) 1520–
1532. doi:CH2282-2/86/0000/1520$01.0.
[3] A. Miriyev, K. Stack, H. Lipson, Soft material for soft actuators, Nat. Commun. 8 (2017) 1–8. doi:10.1038/s41467-017-00685-3.
[4] C. Laschi, M. Cianchetti, B. Mazzolai, L. Margheri, M. Follador, P. Dario, Soft robot arm inspired by the octopus, Adv. Robot. 26 (2012) 709–727.
doi:10.1163/156855312X626343.
[5] W. Crooks, G. Vukasin, M. O’Sullivan, W. Messner, C. Rogers, Fin Ray® Effect Inspired Soft Robotic Gripper: From the RoboSoft Grand Challenge toward
Optimization, Front. Robot. AI. 3 (2016) 1–9. doi:10.3389/frobt.2016.00070.
[6] W. Crooks, S. Rozen-Levy, B. Trimmer, C. Rogers, W. Messner, Passive gripper inspired by Manduca Sexta and the fin ray® effect, Int. J. Adv. Robot. Syst. 14
(2017) 1–7. doi:10.1177/1729881417721155.
[7] R. Deimel, O. Brock, A Novel Type of Compliant, Underactuated Robotic Hand for Dexterous Grasping, Int. J. Rob. Res. 35 (2016) 161–185.
doi:10.1177/0278364915592961.
[8] L.U. Odhner, L.P. Jentoft, M.R. Claffee, N. Corson, Y. Tenzer, R.R. Ma, M. Buehler, R. Kohout, R.D. Howe, A.M. Dollar, A compliant, underactuated hand for robust
manipulation, Int. J. Rob. Res. 33 (2014) 736–752. doi:10.1177/0278364913514466.
[9] R.R. Ma, L.U. Odhner, A.M. Dollar, A modular, open-source 3D printed underactuated hand, Proc. - IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Autom. (2013) 2737–2743.
doi:10.1109/ICRA.2013.6630954.
[10] L. Birglen, T. Schlicht, A statistical review of industrial robotic grippers, Robot. Comput. Integr. Manuf. 49 (2018) 88–97. doi:10.1016/j.rcim.2017.05.007.
[11] D.H. Lee, J.H. Park, S.W. Park, M.H. Baeg, J.H. Bae, KITECH-Hand: A Highly Dexterous and Modularized Robotic Hand, IEEE/ASME Trans. Mechatronics. 22
(2017) 876–887. doi:10.1109/TMECH.2016.2634602.
[12] C.S. Lovchik, M.A. Diftler, The Robonaut hand: a dexterous robot hand for space, Proc. 1999 IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Autom. (Cat. No.99CH36288C). 2 (1999) 907–
912. doi:10.1109/ROBOT.1999.772420.
[13] E.H. Kim, S.W. Lee, Y.K. Lee, A dexterous robot hand with a bio-mimetic mechanism, Int. J. Precis. Eng. Manuf. 12 (2011) 227–235. doi:10.1007/s12541-011-0031-
x.

DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN NIT ROURKELA 12

 References
[14] W. Townsend, The BarrettHand grasper – programmably flexible part handling and assembly, Ind. Robot An Int. J. 27 (2000) 181–188.
doi:10.1108/01439910010371597.
[15] L. Wu, M. Ceccarelli, A Numerical Simulation for Design and Operation of an Underactuated Finger Mechanism for LARM Hand, Mech. Based Des. Struct. Mach. 37
(2009) 86–112. doi:10.1080/15397730802713397.
[16] D. Rus, M.T. Tolley, Design, fabrication and control of soft robots, Nat. Rev. Mater. 3 (2018) 101–112. doi:10.1038/nature14543.
[17] B. Trimmer, Soft robots, Curr. Biol. 23 (2013) R639–R641. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2013.04.070.
[18] K. Elgeneidy, N. Lohse, M. Jackson, E. Niels, N. Lohse, L. Michael, M. Jackson, P. Polygerinos, Z. Wang, J.T.B. Overvelde, K.C. Galloway, R.J. Wood, K. Bertoldi, C.J.
Walsh, Modeling of Soft Fiber-Reinforced Bending Actuators, IEEE Trans. Robot. 31 (2015) 778–789. doi:10.1109/TRO.2015.2428504.
[19] H.K. Yap, B.W.K. Ang, J.H. Lim, J.C.H. Goh, C.H. Yeow, A fabric-regulated soft robotic glove with user intent detection using EMG and RFID for hand assistive
application, Proc. - IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Autom. 2016–June (2016) 3537–3542. doi:10.1109/ICRA.2016.7487535.
[20] L. Paez, G. Agarwal, J. Paik, Design and Analysis of a Soft Pneumatic Actuator with Origami Shell Reinforcement, Soft Robot. 3 (2016) 109–119.
doi:10.1016/j.ajem.2016.10.063.
[21] E. Brown, N. Rodenberg, J. Amend, A. Mozeika, E. Steltz, M.R. Zakin, H. Lipson, H.M. Jaeger, Universal robotic gripper based on the jamming of granular material,
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 107 (2010) 18809–18814. doi:10.1073/PNAS.1003250107.
[22] Y. Li, Y. Chen, Y. Yang, Y. Wei, Passive Particle Jamming and Its Stiffening of Soft Robotic Grippers, IEEE Trans. Robot. 33 (2017) 446–455.
doi:10.1109/TRO.2016.2636899.
[23] T. Hassan, M. Manti, G. Passetti, N. D’Elia, M. Cianchetti, C. Laschi, Design and development of a bio-inspired, under-actuated soft gripper, Proc. Annu. Int. Conf.
IEEE Eng. Med. Biol. Soc. EMBS. 2015–November (2015) 3619–3622. doi:10.1109/EMBC.2015.7319176.
[24] M.G. Catalano, G. Grioli, E. Farnioli, A. Serio, C. Piazza, A. Bicchi, Adaptive synergies for the design and control of the Pisa/IIT SoftHand, Int. J. Rob. Res. 33 (2014)
768–782. doi:10.1177/0278364913518998.

DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN NIT ROURKELA 13

 THANK YOU

DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN NIT ROURKELA 14