Design and Fabrication of Pneumatic Gripper for Robotic Manipulation

Abstract

To reduce labor costs and to ensure consistent quality control of the process, robotics has been familiar in industry to replace humans in demanding and repetitive tasks. In factory automation and industrial manufacturing, abstract material handling and pick and place mechanism are widely used methods and based on applications, different motor technologies have been designed and employed. High speed and reliability and low robot gripper costs are necessary for a worthwhile pick and place process. For positioning and orientation of objects, robotic manipulation is essential as gripper helps in gripping, sucking, lifting, placing and releasing. Therefore, design and fabrication of suction cup and pneumatic mechanism is a promising approach for pick and place material with flat surface. However, current grippers are not able to handle products properly because they have uneven shapes, are flexible and irregular, have different textures and are very penetrating to damage. The main aim of work is to design the gripper mechanism and vacuum suction mechanism working in single and multiple pick and place operations. In this research work, both designed and development of pneumatic gripper has been done using 3D printing technology and the vacuum mechanism is created by means of vacuum pump, pipe and control valve. Experiments validate that the designed gripper was highly effective in terms of accurate picking and placing and shows encouraging results include effective picking in smooth as well as rough surfaces. Further pneumatic grippers of varied thicknesses were compared with conventional suction cups for evaluating overall effectiveness and efficiency of the designed gripper. The force for the gripper and working of the vacuum suction are checked and observed for loads at various pressures.