Assessment on the haptic and perceptional characteristics of an anthropomorphic soft finger tip for robotic grippers

Abstract

Due to the innovative advancements in science and technology, robots have superseded human beings as the better candidates for carrying out dull, repetitive and hazardous tasks like exploration of space and ocean depths. Usually, such robots possess manipulators which are bio-inspired by the limbs of the human beings. Human hand is considered to be one of the best natural manipulators capable of holding wide range of objects of complex geometry and perform complex activities in an adaptive manner. The hallmark of its efficient performance is due to the composite nature of the human fingers with soft flesh and skin over hard bones.In recent decades, the potential applications of soft fingertips made up of different materials, have sparked much interest among the community of robotics research. The problem of handling different objects without slippage and damage seem to be best tackled through the design and development of novel soft fingertips, choice of appropriate materials and investigations on the contact parameters.This research work explores the possibilities of developing an alternative fingertip model by examining the performance of hemispherical and cylindrical shaped fingertips pressed against flat and non-flat profiles.Finite Element Method (FEM) is used for assessment of contact attributes of artificial fingertips and exhaustive experimental investigations are conducted to validate the numerical results. newline