A Nitinol-Embedded Wearable Soft Robotic Gripper for Deep-Sea Manipulation

Soft robotic gripper systems that can safely and nondestructively collect biological and artifact samples and perform deep-sea manipulation tasks are essential for deep- sea science and engineering applications. In this paper, we implemented a soft robotic gripper composed of nitinol- embedded soft fingers and an in-situ wearable mechanism that allows the soft gripper to be put on and removed from the traditional rigid gripper according to the deep-sea tasks. We apply finite element simulation to investigate the influence of nitinol wires’ diameter on the soft finger and then examine the strength and grasping ability. The results indicate the soft gripper's maximum horizontal and vertical pulling forces can reach 75.5N and 135.7N, respectively. We show that the gripper can perform nondestructive sampling tasks, including picking and placing fragile porcelain and operating a precision instrument at a depth range of 1410m to 3600m by a human- crewed deep-sea submersible (Deep Sea Warrior). The results from this study may provide new design insights into the creation of next-generation deep-sea intelligent robotic systems that can perform dexterous manipulation.