UNIVERSAL GRIPPER DESIGN AND CONTROL FOR A MANUAL INSERTION TASK IN MANUFACTURING LINE

Abstract

The design of a universal gripper based on the principle of liquid jamming is presented in this Thesis. The phase change behavior of a mineral oil subjected to cooling is used for adaptive gripping and release of objects. The mineral oil is enclosed in a soft, compliant membrane which easily adapts to the shape of the object to be picked up. A thermoelectric cooling system is designed with a conductive spreader immersed in the oil to quickly cool the liquid held in a membrane. Once the membrane gripper conforms to the shape of the object partially enclosing it, the liquid is cooled below the phase change temperature, thus freezing the liquid and hardening the gripper around the object and effectively gripping it. The hardware is evaluated and the basic gripping functions on different odd-shaped objects are demonstrated. An alternate approach of fitting the model to the measurements is used.