Design and development of the soft robotic gripper used for the food packaging system

This paper presents the design and development of the soft robotic gripper with four actuators, which are made of hyperelastic material and operated by pneumatic systems. Simulation of the gripper deformation and dynamics issue was performed by using the finite element method in the ABAQUS software. The actuator was made by casting method and the mold was 3D printed. The auxiliary mechanical device, which is integrated to the gripper, is a two degree of freedom mechanism. It can move up and down and turn left and right conveniently. The developed gripper can handle the object of different shapes with a geometrical limit up to 8 cm and gripping mass up to 300 gram. Experimental results showed that the gripper can operate with the productivity of 3 objects per minute that meets the actual requirements of the product packaging line in practice.