Design of Highly Repeatable and Multi-Functional Grippers for Precision Handling with Articulated Robots

This paper presents a novel approach to designing, a low-cost gripper that is highly repeatable and functionally integrated. The gripper is optimized to compensate for gripping errors with particular consideration to potential challenges of articulated robots. The primary design goal is to achieve maximum repeatability during the gripping and releasing stages of a pick-and-place process for a chip-like silicon die. The design is centered around a custom printed circuit board integrates functionality for vision-based error compensation, vacuum level monitoring, part contact detection, and detection of abnormal vibrations. We detail our design requirements and specific design choices for the mechanical and electronic design and provide qualitative and quantitative experimental validation of the achieved repeatability and the integrated functions.