Robotic Gripper Design1

Li Yingying
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
National University of Singapore
21 Lower Kent Ridge Road, Singapore 119077
ABSTRACT
A robotic gripper is developed for universal use of gripping small objects. This robotic gripper is a two-jointed
three fingered grasper. Its three fingers have synchronous mobility as driven by the sole DC motor. The upper
joint of each finger is driven by the lower joint by purely mechanism; no extra actuator is required. This
gripper is designed as driven by only one actuator at the palm. It is non-backdrivable but programmable.

INTRODUCTION
A robotic gripper is an essential component of a robotic manipulator. It serves as the robots
hand and allows the robot to manipulate objects. Recently robotic gripper is widely used for
different tasks in various fields. Variety of robotic grippers is developed in high flexibility and
multi-function. Particularly, humanoid robot technology in this area attracts high attention of
public. This project is aimed to study current existing robotic grippers and design a basic
functional gripper to achieve simple grasping tasks.

DESIGN
1. Structure of the gripper
This gripper consists of two major parts as shown in Figure 1 below:
(1) Stationary base, (Figure 1) including bottom base 1, support shafts 2, motor 3, motor
attached base 4, palm 5, planetary gear 6, rods 7 and worm gear 8.
The gripper palm 5 is designed in round shape. Three fingers are placed in triangle position on
palm 5. Base 1 and 4 are in the same size. Shafts 2 here connect base 1 & 4, and support the total
weight of the gripper. DC motor 3 is fixed onto base 4 and attached to planetary gear 6.
Planetary gear 6 is fixed on base 4 as driver for the 3 fingers. Rods 7 are used to drive the worm
gears 8 attached on them, so as to drive the three fingers.
(2) Three Fingers, (Figure 3) each finger including three parts, upper part and lower part and
finger holder 11. Upper part includes a pulley 12 and solid 13, shaft 14. Lower part includes a
helical gear 15, a pulley 16, solid 17 and shaft 18. Shaft 14 connects upper part and lower part
together. Shaft 18 connects lower part and finger holder together. Pulley 12 and pulley 16 are
connected by timing belt 19. Finger holder 11 attaches finger to the stationary base.

This project is an Undergraduate Research Opporunities Project (UROP) which was completed in Dec 2007.

Finger
5

7&8

Figure 1,
Complete structure of gripper

6
2
3

Stationary
Base
1

2. Driving Mechanism
Each finger has two joints, lower joint and upper joint. (Figure 2)
(a) Lower Joint
13

12
14
19

15

17

18

16

11

Figure 2, Lower Joint

Figure 3, Single Finger

As shown in Figure 2, DC motor is used here as actuator to drive three fingers simultaneously.
Gears are used here as major driving mechanism. The DC motor is attached to the sun gear of
planetary gear to drive planet gears. Each planet gear drives worm gear rotating through driving
the rod attached on it, and the worm gear drives the helical gear which is the driver of finger.
The lower joint is in one degree of freedom. The joint can open from more than 180 degrees
(open position) to 60 degrees (close position). This ensures the lower part of the finger has
contact with the objects, no matter the size of the objects.
(b) Upper Joint

As shown in Figure 3, pulleys and timing belt are used here as major driving mechanism. The
lower pulley is attached to the helical gear as one piece. When helical gear rotates, the lower
pulley rotates and drives the upper pulley rotating through timing belt. The upper pulley is
attached onto the upper part of the finger as one piece. As the upper pulley rotates, upper part of
the finger is driven rotating.
The radius ratio of the lower pulley and upper pulley is 2:1. Upper pulley rotates 2 times of
degree of the lower pulley. This ensures upper finger closes in enough degrees to grasp the
objects.

DETAILED DESIGN
1. Motor
DC geared motor is used here. The total weight of 3kg object is affordable.
Voltage
6~12V

Speed
90~180 rmp

Torque
3 kg

Weight
80g

2. Planetary Gear
In this design the planetary carrier is held stationary, and the sun gear is
used as input. In this case, the planetary gears simply rotate about their
own axes at a rate determined by the number of teeth in each gear.
Here the gear ratio of the sun gear and planetary gear is 1:1. The speed is
remained.
Metal planetary gear is used here.

3. Timing belt
Timing belts are used for power transmission and to interchange rotary motion. Timing belt has
the advantage of avoiding back-lash problem because of the teeth on the belt. But the installation
of timing belt must be very careful to ensure the exact length and position of it.
5. Reduced weight
To reduce the weight of the gripper, holes are made on the supporting shafts and bottom base.

6. Material
Bases, support shafts and finger solid parts are made of Aluminum. Aluminum is in low weight
and solid enough here to afford the force and weight applied. All gears and pulley are in metal,
because they have to afford the high torque and can be easily damaged. The finger holder is
made in plastic, nylon. It is light weight and no much force to afford.

CONCLUSION
A three fingered relatively small size robotic gripper is designed. This gripper is simply driven
by one DC motor. The capability of the gripper is to grasp max 3 kg small size objects. Due to
time constrain, the gripper is not fabricated. But the manufacture possibility is confirmed by one
fabrication center. Function of the single finger is tested and confirmed during the design process.
Further studies such as force control test and grasping test will be performed to confirm the
effectiveness of the driving method. In additional, smart material (shape memory alloy) may be
used to as actuator to drive upper joint of the finger to replace the timing belt driven. Further
study will be performed to test this method.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my sincerely appreciation and thanks to Associate Professor Marcelo H
Ang J, the project supervisor for his constant patience, guidance and understanding throughout
this project. Prof. Ang helped me a lot throughout the project and never failed to guide me
slowly and enlightened me on my thinking process. His understanding and encouragement
throughout the project is the most motivation for me to complete this project successfully.
Also my thanks go to Control Lab officers, for rendering their help to me whenever I need and
enhancing my efficiency in completing the project.

REFERENCES
1. Barrett Technology Inc. http://www.barrett.com/robot/index.htm
2. Paolo Pedrazzoli, Poberto Rinaldi and Claudio R.Boer, A rule based approach to the gripper
selection issue for the assembly process, Proc. 4th IEEE International Symposium on Assembly
and Task Planning, pp. 205 &207, 2001
3. Hydraulic Four-bar Gripper, Retrieved from: http://www.sarobotics.com/
4. RS online catalogue, http://www.rssingapore.com/cgi-bin/
5. Planetary gears, http://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/tech/planet.htm