An electrostatic gripper for flexible objects
Authors:
- 1 September 2017
- conference paper
- Published by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
- p. 1172-1179
Abstract
We demonstrate a flexible, electrostatic adhesive gripper designed to controllably grasp and manipulate soft goods in space. The 8-fingered gripper has 50 cm2 of active electrodes operating at 3 kV. It generates electrostatic adhesion forces up to 3.5 N (0.70 kPa) on Ge-coated polyimide film and 1.2 N on MLI blanket, a film composite used for satellite thermal insulation. Extremely low-force gripper engagement (0.08 N) and release (0.04 N) of films is ideal for micro-gravity. Individual fingers generate shear adhesion forces up to 4.76 N (5.04 kPa) using electrostatic adhesive and 45.0 N (47.6 kPa) with a hybrid electrostatic / gecko adhesive. To simulate a satellite servicing task, the gripper was mounted on a 7-DoF robot arm and performed a supervised grasp, manipulate, and release sequence on a hanging, Al-coated PET film.Keywords
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