A reconfigurable three-finger robotic gripper

This paper presents a multi-DOF and reconfigurable robotic gripper which has three fingers and is easy to control. Every finger of the gripper has three joints that are actuated by two motors. The mechanical gripper structure contains the same three fingers, while every finger can be driven and controlled independently. Based on the four-bar linkage, a model of reconfigurable mechanism is obtained, while input variables can determine the motion and trajectory. The gripper consists of palm, three fingers, rotating base. The first phalange and the second phalange are coupled and driven by first servo motor, while the second DC motor rotate the finger using a type of worm-and-wheel beside the third joint of finger. The third DOF of every finger is not coupled that makes the reconfiguration of the gripper can be obtained by adjusting the orientation of the fingers. Potentiometers integrated in the motors detect rotate angers of every finger in order to measure the rotation of joints for controlling the gripper to adapt to different shapes of the object and determine the final configurations. The gripper is designed to provide the ability of performing industrial tasks involving the grasping of a variety of different sizes of objects. The primary experimental exhibits a good capability to versatile grasping with reduced complexity.