Bio-inspired soft pneumatic gripper for agriculture harvesting

For agricultural harvesting, handling fruits and vegetables are important processes which need a flexible but firm grip with dexterity. Due to the existing limitations of standard traditional grippers, a diverse range of soft grippers has been developed utilising elastomer, silicon, flexible plastic material etc. The manufacturing process includes mainly moulding or 3D printing and is actuated by pneumatic/ hydraulic drives, tendon drives or electrical signals. Still, there is a gap in the current market of soft grippers in terms of creating the required holding force with flexibility and bending to handle delicate foods. To overcome these existing limitations, a bio-inspired soft gripper is developed from 3D printing using Ninjaflex material. The proposed pneumatic controlled gripper is integrated with a hair-like fine structure and DIP-inspired feature to provide better grip to surfaces along with electrostatic attraction and suction. A comprehensive FEA simulation has been performed on material selection to find lower stress, longer lifespan, and higher bending capacity. Three basic tests are conducted to evaluate its performance: static friction, block force and radius of curvature. Besides, a simple grasping experiment is also conducted for holding tomatoes and coffee cups. Considering these results, the developed gripper has the potential to be acceptable in the current agricultural industry for handling objects.