Toothed soft pneumatic gripper for grasping irregular geometries

This paper presents a concept for an air-pressure-powered soft-toothed gripper designed to grasp irregular objects with protruding elements such as edges, cables and stems. The design is described thoroughly and supported using the finite element method. Because soft grippers are a proven food-handling tool, this application serves as a focal point in evaluating the designed device in the relevant experiments. This work presents design, manufacturing and validation processes while addressing aspects such as grasp success rate, pick-and-place performance, load capacity, and exerted force.