Design methodology of hydraulically-driven soft robotic gripper for a large and heavy object

2026-01-08

Advanced Robotics

AI Summary

This work proposes a high-pressure hydraulic actuation approach for soft robotic grippers, addressing the limitations of conventional pneumatic systems that struggle to stably grasp heavy objects weighing 10–20 kg with diameters of 20–30 cm. By introducing hydraulic actuation into soft robotics for the first time, the design overcomes the force constraints inherent in pneumatic mechanisms. A systematic design methodology is developed, incorporating a mathematical model that relates actuation pressure, bending angle, and gripping force to determine optimal structural parameters, complemented by finite element analysis for material selection. Experimental results demonstrate that the resulting gripper reliably handles payloads up to 20 kg and achieves high-precision closed-loop control of finger bending angles, thereby validating both the efficacy and practicality of the proposed approach.

Technology Category

Intelligent Robots: ManipulationHumans and AI: Interaction Techniques and DevicesSearch and Optimization: Sampling/Simulation-based Search

Application Category

Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environmentsResponsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomyGraph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs

Abstract

This paper presents a design methodology of a hydraulically-driven soft robotic gripper for grasping a large and heavy object – approximately 10–20 kg with 20–30 cm diameter. Most existing soft grippers are pneumatically actuated with several hundred kPa pressure and cannot generate output force sufficient for such a large and heavy object. Instead of pneumatic actuation, hydraulic actuation has a potential to generate much larger power by several MPa pressure. In this study, we develop a hydraulically-driven soft gripper, in which its basic design parameters are determined based on a mathematical model that represents the relationship among the driving pressure, bending angle, object mass and grasping force. Moreover, we selected materials suitable for grasping a heavier object, based on the finite element analysis result of the detailed design. We report experimental results on a 20-kg object grasping and closed-loop control of the finger bending angle. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

Problem

• soft robotic gripper
• heavy object grasping
• hydraulic actuation
• large payload
• grasping force

Innovation

• hydraulic actuation
• soft robotic gripper
• large object manipulation
• mathematical modeling
• finite element analysis