A Sensorized Soft Robotic Hand with Adhesive Fingertips for Multimode Grasping and Manipulation

Abstract

Soft robotic grippers excel at achieving conformal and reliable contact with objects without the need for complex control algorithms. However, they still lack in grasp and manipulation abilities compared with human hands. In this study, we present a sensorized multi-fingered soft gripper with bioinspired adhesive fingertips that can provide both fingertip-based adhesion grasping and finger-based form closure grasping modes. The gripper incorporates mushroom-like microstructures on its adhesive fingertips, enabling robust adhesion through uniform load shearing. A single fingertip exhibits a maximum load capacity of 4.18 N against a flat substrate. The soft fingers have multiple joints, and each joint can be independently actuated through pneumatic control. This enables diverse bending motions and stable grasping of various objects, with a maximum load capacity of 28.29 N for three fingers. In addition, the soft gripper is equipped with a kirigami-patterned stretchable sensor for motion monitoring and control. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our design by successfully grasping and manipulating a diverse range of objects with varying shapes, sizes, and curvatures. Moreover, we present the practical application of our sensorized soft gripper for remotely controlled cooking.