RESEARCH ON GENERATIVE DESIGN OF PASSIVE ROBOTIC GRIPPERS
A recent paper from researchers at the University of Washington entitled Computational Design of Passive Grippers explores the generative design of passive robotic grippers that have no additional actuation and instead leverage the existing degrees of freedom in a robotic arm to perform grasping tasks.
We have seen this approach taken to automatically ‘generate’ manufacturing aids such as jigs and fixtures in the past, but the researchers must also take into account a more complex automated insert path and stability of the part in motion.
To achieve this, they addressed the key challenge of jointly optimizing the shape and the insert trajectory to ensure a passively stable grasp.
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