Abstract

Acknowledgement
List of Contents
List of Tables and Figures
Glossary of Terms
I. Introduction and Background
II. Literature Survey
III. Methodology and Contribution
Grasping and Releasing Mechanism
The proposed gripper design is by combining flexible fin-ray finger with the linear driving
configuration based on previous work (Hasib, et. Al). The linear movement is supported by
the installation of stepper motor with a screw ball mechanism. The rotation of stepper motor
will drive the screw to pull or release the gripper simultaneously. The stepper motor NEMA
17 A3967 is selected to use in controlling the step, speed and rotational direction. This motor
driver has a limit current control around150mA/phase to 750mA/phase. Arduino UNO is
chosen as a microcontroller to the help the operation through programming.
The mechanism of the grasping operation depends on how the stepper motor rotates. When
the motor rotates in clockwise direction the inner adapter move downward as it later will pull
the inner gripper in order to open the gripper widely before the grasp the object. This
configuration can be simulated in vice versa. In terms of releasing the object, the screw will
be rotated anticlockwise to loose the inner adapter so that the finger can form the opened
hand. The grasping action is adjustable with the flexibility of full rotation or the steps of
motor. This can ease the grasping capacity but on the other hand it will also increase the time
of gripping action. Hence, it is best noting to keep the steps of the stepper in its optimum
value. The action of stepper motor represents the active mechanism, while the flexible fin
gripper acts as passive role due to its compliant structure.

Soft fin ray

Inner adapter
Rigid Structure

Screw ball
mechanism
NEMA Stepper
Motor 17

Figure 1 Finray Gripper

Design and Fabrication of Fin-ray Finger

The soft fin-ray gripper is designed by using Solidworks as quite a flexible software to save
to another file such as .step or .stl for the Robodk or Webots for programming purpose. Some
parameters of the modeling are considered to suit the practical purpose in fruit picking. In the
model of the fin gripper, the height is 102mm the width of the base is 40mm which it has 4.2
mm spacing between the cross beams and 3 mm thickness of the gripper edge. The ten
crossbeams have 11.53deg angle aligned with the inclination of the edge gripper. These
crossbeams supports the soft structure in grasping and releasing objects that can take
particular force in the following section. The length of inner adapter is 40mm so it enables
the fin gripper to open around 80mm in its maximum release. This rigid structure is
compromised to fit in grasping some typical size of fruit such as strawberry, tomatoes,
banana, apple. The rigid structure is constructed based on the size of UR10e (Universal
Robot), therefore there is a customized cylindrical plate to be attached in the tool end of
UR10e to connect the designed fin ray gripper.

Figure 2 (a) Fin Ray Gripper Dimension (b) UR10e with Fin Ray End effector

Materials
A material used in the proposed design is called Ecoflex as one of most widely used rubber
materials. This silicone elastomer is hyperelastic and nearly incompressible (Navas, et. al).
This material have several advantageous such as low cost, easy to fabricate, does not require
the use of complex machinery or skilled labour and also safe for biological products
interaction. Previous work in (Steck, et al) experimenting the multiaxial response of Ecoflex
in the behavior of compressible and incompressible has demonstrated quite a well measurable
performance at large deformation. Following the previous research, a third-order Ogden
model is used to represent the material characteristic of fin ray gripper with the coefficients
as follows;
Table 1 Parameters for Ecoflex (incompressible material)

µ1 α1 µ2 α2 µ3 α3
22 kPa 1.3 0.4 kPa 5 -2 kPa -2

Static deflection analysis of fin-ray finger

The Finite Element Analysis (FEA) simulation of fin ray gripper is done in the Abaqus
software. The simulation model uses hyperelastic material with the third order of Ogden
model. Due to the cross-section of the fin ray gripper, the simulation is simplified from 3D
(three-dimensional) model to 2-D in planar schematic. In the scenario, a 0-degree angle with
a 10 N load is applied to the middle of the gripper at around 56.6 mm height in the one
inclined surface. The base of the gripper is fixed as a boundary condition. As presented in
Fig. 3, the concentrated force is directed to the middle node of the gripper. Figure 4
represents the fin ray gripper that are capable to receive such that particular force as the color
of the gripper is still in medium range (green color), whereas only the tip of the gripper which
illustrate the red color as it has much less thickness of the structure. Figure 5 and 6
demonstrate the displacement and stress against time respectively.
 Figure 3 Concentrated force towards the gripper

Figure 4 FEA simulation

S Mises

Figure 5 ODB field output; Time vs Displacement in X direction (U1)

 Figure 6 ODB field output; Time vs Stress Mises and Stress Pressure

Thickness Variation
Force Respon
Passive Adaptation
Webots programming
Results and Evaluation
Discussion
Conclusion
References
Appendices

Material Ecoflex Fin ray, Coefficient of Ogden N = 3,

Analysis of Force 10 N monitor.

S Mises

S Mises

ODB field output; Time vs Displacement in X direction (U1)

ODB field output; Time vs Stress Mises and Stress Pressure