A versatile end effector for grabbing and spreading of flaky deformable object manipulation

Abstract. It is a conundrum to use robots to complete the intelligent operation of leather and clothing fabrics; this is mainly reflected in the design of an end effector that can realize this function. We have determined the design requirements and objectives of the end effector by observing the action of manually grabbing and spreading leather, and put forward an end effector composed of a reconfigurable multi-link mechanism and roller-type fingertip, which can be used to grab and spread flaky deformable object manipulation. At the same time, the reconfigurable multi-link mechanism and roller-type fingertip are introduced and analyzed in detail. By setting up the prototype of the end effector and completing the grabbing experiment of three kinds of soft pieces, we verified and tested the rationality of the prototype design. The result shows that the grabbing success rate will be affected by many factors, and further exploration is needed to further improve the performance of the end effector.