Rigid–Soft Interactive Design of a Lobster-Inspired Finger Surface for Enhanced Grasping Underwater
Bio-inspirations from soft-bodied animals provide a rich design source for soft robots, yet limited literature explored the potential enhancement from rigid-bodied ones. This paper draws inspiration from the tooth profiles of the rigid claws of the Boston Lobster, aiming at an enhanced soft finger s...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2021-12-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Robotics and AI |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2021.787187/full |
| _version_ | 1818979295185338368 |
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| author | Haiyang Jiang Xudong Han Yonglin Jing Ning Guo Fang Wan Chaoyang Song |
| author_facet | Haiyang Jiang Xudong Han Yonglin Jing Ning Guo Fang Wan Chaoyang Song |
| author_sort | Haiyang Jiang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Bio-inspirations from soft-bodied animals provide a rich design source for soft robots, yet limited literature explored the potential enhancement from rigid-bodied ones. This paper draws inspiration from the tooth profiles of the rigid claws of the Boston Lobster, aiming at an enhanced soft finger surface for underwater grasping using an iterative design process. The lobsters distinguish themselves from other marine animals with a pair of claws capable of dexterous object manipulation both on land and underwater. We proposed a 3-stage design iteration process that involves raw imitation, design parametric exploration, and bionic parametric exploitation on the original tooth profiles on the claws of the Boston Lobster. Eventually, 7 finger surface designs were generated and fabricated with soft silicone. We validated each design stage through many vision-based robotic grasping attempts against selected objects from the Evolved Grasping Analysis Dataset (EGAD). Over 14,000 grasp attempts were accumulated on land (71.4%) and underwater (28.6%), where we selected the optimal design through an on-land experiment and further tested its capability underwater. As a result, we observed an 18.2% improvement in grasping success rate at most from a resultant bionic finger surface design, compared with those without the surface, and a 10.4% improvement at most compared with the validation design from the previous literature. Results from this paper are relevant and consistent with the bioresearch earlier in 1911, showing the value of bionics. The results indicate the capability and competence of the optimal bionic finger surface design in an amphibious environment, which can contribute to future research in enhanced underwater grasping using soft robots. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-20T16:57:15Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7c4dd7437902419d9e513b5ff06d08d1 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2296-9144 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-20T16:57:15Z |
| publishDate | 2021-12-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Robotics and AI |
| spelling | doaj.art-7c4dd7437902419d9e513b5ff06d08d12022-12-21T19:32:42ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Robotics and AI2296-91442021-12-01810.3389/frobt.2021.787187787187Rigid–Soft Interactive Design of a Lobster-Inspired Finger Surface for Enhanced Grasping UnderwaterHaiyang Jiang 0Xudong Han 1Yonglin Jing2Ning Guo 3Fang Wan 4Chaoyang Song 5Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, ChinaDepartment of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, ChinaDepartment of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, ChinaDepartment of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, ChinaAncoraSpring, Inc., Shenzhen, ChinaDepartment of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, ChinaBio-inspirations from soft-bodied animals provide a rich design source for soft robots, yet limited literature explored the potential enhancement from rigid-bodied ones. This paper draws inspiration from the tooth profiles of the rigid claws of the Boston Lobster, aiming at an enhanced soft finger surface for underwater grasping using an iterative design process. The lobsters distinguish themselves from other marine animals with a pair of claws capable of dexterous object manipulation both on land and underwater. We proposed a 3-stage design iteration process that involves raw imitation, design parametric exploration, and bionic parametric exploitation on the original tooth profiles on the claws of the Boston Lobster. Eventually, 7 finger surface designs were generated and fabricated with soft silicone. We validated each design stage through many vision-based robotic grasping attempts against selected objects from the Evolved Grasping Analysis Dataset (EGAD). Over 14,000 grasp attempts were accumulated on land (71.4%) and underwater (28.6%), where we selected the optimal design through an on-land experiment and further tested its capability underwater. As a result, we observed an 18.2% improvement in grasping success rate at most from a resultant bionic finger surface design, compared with those without the surface, and a 10.4% improvement at most compared with the validation design from the previous literature. Results from this paper are relevant and consistent with the bioresearch earlier in 1911, showing the value of bionics. The results indicate the capability and competence of the optimal bionic finger surface design in an amphibious environment, which can contribute to future research in enhanced underwater grasping using soft robots.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2021.787187/fullsoft roboticsrobotic graspingunderwater manipulationbiomimeticsrigid–soft interaction |
| spellingShingle | Haiyang Jiang Xudong Han Yonglin Jing Ning Guo Fang Wan Chaoyang Song Rigid–Soft Interactive Design of a Lobster-Inspired Finger Surface for Enhanced Grasping Underwater Frontiers in Robotics and AI soft robotics robotic grasping underwater manipulation biomimetics rigid–soft interaction |
| title | Rigid–Soft Interactive Design of a Lobster-Inspired Finger Surface for Enhanced Grasping Underwater |
| title_full | Rigid–Soft Interactive Design of a Lobster-Inspired Finger Surface for Enhanced Grasping Underwater |
| title_fullStr | Rigid–Soft Interactive Design of a Lobster-Inspired Finger Surface for Enhanced Grasping Underwater |
| title_full_unstemmed | Rigid–Soft Interactive Design of a Lobster-Inspired Finger Surface for Enhanced Grasping Underwater |
| title_short | Rigid–Soft Interactive Design of a Lobster-Inspired Finger Surface for Enhanced Grasping Underwater |
| title_sort | rigid soft interactive design of a lobster inspired finger surface for enhanced grasping underwater |
| topic | soft robotics robotic grasping underwater manipulation biomimetics rigid–soft interaction |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2021.787187/full |
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