| dc.description.abstract | Humans have managed to simplify their lives by using robots to automate dull and repetitive tasks. Traditional robots have been very helpful in this respect, but in certain applications, the complexity of manufacturing and the requisite control strategies have rendered these systems inadequate. The concept of robots made of soft materials has increasingly been explored and a new avenue of research has opened up within the robotics community. In terms of construction, robots made of soft and flexible materials have several advantages over their rigid-bodied counterparts, among them simple design, simple control mechanisms, inexpensive constituent materials and the fact that they can be easily integrated into existing systems. Soft grippers in particular have been the subject of extensive research and we have witnessed significant development in terms of attributes like grasping, payload and sensing methodologies. Progress has been enhanced by the development of new materials used in the construction of actuators or end effectors of the grippers. The use of lightweight, non-stretch fabrics is a relatively new concept but initial studies have demonstrated their effectiveness in grasping applications. This thesis sets out a comparative study of popular gripping systems, focusing on the advantages of using fabrics in the construction of soft grippers. Multiple designs for fabric based finger like actuators, each addressing the drawbacks of the preceding design, are discussed along with the experimental evaluation of each design. A novel gripping mechanism in which the fingers of the gripper grow lengthwise from the tip (evert) to access and grasp the object is also presented. Large-scale fabric based eversion robots have been constructed to access environments with restricted access and for monitoring purposes. An experimental evaluation of the eversion capable finger is also presented, outlining important attributes such as payload, bending and force capability of the designed finger. An optical fibre based sensing methodology is also presented, capable of measuring the bending behaviour in soft actuators. The proposed sensor can be configured to sense bending angles, as well as the contact forces along different points along the length of the actuators. | en_US |
