2019 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC)

Bari, Italy. October 6-9, 2019

Design of a Soft Robotic Gripper for Improved Grasping with

Suction Cups
Patrick Bryan † , Shitij Kumar† , Ferat Sahin†
† Department of Electrical and Microelectronic Engineering

{pbb7407,spk4422,feseee}@rit.edu
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester NY 14623, USA

Abstract—In this paper, a new design for a soft robotic gripper

is proposed which combined humanoid fingers with bioinspired
suction cups. The gripper is capable of reconfiguration of the
fingers to allow multiple grasping strategies to be achieved.
The grasping strategies implemented are cylindrical, spherical,
and tip gripping of an object. Construction of the physical soft
robotic gripper was implemented in hardware and software to
allow for experimentation of the new design. Experiments of
grasping objects of varied shape and weight were done ans results
tabulated. The experiments gave a deeper understanding of the
design choices impact on the ability of the gripper to perform
pick and place tasks.
Index Terms—robotics, soft-robotics, grasping, 3D-printing,
gripper design, soft-gripper Fig. 1. Schlesingers Classification of Prehension [4]

I. I NTRODUCTION
following two sections will review recent papers on the two
Although many tasks can be performed by a robot arm, the topics.
most challenging problem of any task is the ability to manipu-
late an object. Manipulation of an object can be achieved with A. Robotic Grasping
various types of end effectors. Most end effectors are designed Understanding the strategies of robotic grasping is necessary
and built to perform a single task or manipulate objects of a in developing end effectors for robotic arms. The most popular
specific shape. The most common manipulators are variations human hand study of grasping strategies is Schlesinger’s
of a two-point contact gripper where two parallel surfaces classification of prehension [1], [2], [3]. Figure 1 shows the six
pinch or grasp the object. These types of grippers have issues prehensile types: cylindrical, tip, hook, palmar, spherical, and
when grasping objects that do not have two parallel sides or lateral. The study of human hand prehension has been used in
the object is not small enough to fit in the gripper. Traditional research fields of “psychology, kinesiology and neuroscience”
robotic arm manipulators fail in an environment where the to develop “human’s prehension planning models” [1]. These
types of objects vary in size and dimension. One approach models have been adopted for development of robot grasping
to handling the issue of grasping various shaped objects is to planning framework [1] and a grasping strategy engine [2].
use a manipulator that can adapt or change to the shape of an Understanding the application of human hand prehension
object. The use of soft robots and grippers has recently grown can help develop robotic grippers that perform as good as
in popularity because they allow for the gripper to conform the human hand. Park et. al. presents a grasping planning
to the object. Other manipulator designs address the issue of framework for a multiple-fingered robotic hand that aims to
grasping objects by increasing the number of points of contact determine the proper grasping strategy for a target object [1].
or using contact-less approaches. In this paper, a three-finger Shin et. al. proposes using a 3D point cloud to recognize and
soft gripper with suction cups is proposed as a novel way of estimate the pose of an object to develop a gripping strategy
conforming to objects while increasing the grasping potential for a robotic hand [2].
of a soft gripper.
Another method of handling the grasping strategy is the de-
velopment of re-configurable robotic grippers. Li et. al propose
II. R ELATED L ITERATURE AND BACKGROUND
that the best robot hand may not look like a human hand [5].
There are many aspects to be considered when designing In their paper, they present a three-finger robotic gripper with
a soft gripper to meet the desired specifications. To better the ability to be reconfigured for various ”grasping gestures” to
understand the problem of robotic grasping and soft grippers, ”grasp different shapes of objects” [5]. Borisov et. al designed
a survey of previous works in the area was explored. The an adapted version of the three-finger robotic gripper from Li

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et. al. for use on a mobile robot in an industrial environment method is the use of pressurized air to expand cavities within
[6]. Figure 2 shows the gripper designs from Li et.al and the finger. Figure 4 shows various examples of pressurized air
Borisov et. al. and the ability for the grippers to adapt to powered soft grippers.
different shaped objects [5], [6]. Both designs are capable
of three of the six prehension types of the human hand:
cylindrical, spherical, and tip grasping.

Fig. 2. Re-configurable Three-Finger Robotic Gripper (Left Image) [5],

Three-Finger versatile Gripper for Mobile Robot (Right Image) [6]
Fig. 4. Various Pressurized Air Soft Grippers: (a) Soft Gripper with Gecko
Adhesion [9], (b) Robust and Dexterous Grasping Soft Robotic Gripper [10],
Another method of approaching the robotic grasping prob- (c) Variable Effective Length Pneumatic Soft Gripper [11], (d) Enhanced
lem is to move away from mimicking the human hand and Object Adaptation and Grasping Reliability Soft Robotic Gripper [12], (e)
instead use other methods of gripping such as jamming or Soft-bodied Gripper with Integrated Curvature Sensors [13], (f) Modular Soft
Robotic Gripper [14]
suction. Brown et. al. proposed an alternate method of grip-
ping using jamming of granular material to conform to the
target object [7]. Their universal gripper consists of a single Each of these designs employs the same method of pressur-
nonporous elastic bag filled with granular matter [7]. The bag ized air to expand chambers inside the finger. The expansion
is pressed onto the target object and a vacuum removes the of the chambers actuates the finger based on the design and
remaining air in the bag producing a rigid jamming grip on configuration of the chambers. Some of the grippers include
the object [7]. Takahashi et. al. used the same principle of curvature sensors that provide a means to control the actuation
jamming material to develop an octopus bioinspired vacuum of the fingers [13], [14]. This allows for a more closed control
gripper, but also used a suction as a gripping method [8]. system for deriving different grasping strategies.
Figure 3 shows a cross section of their gripper design showing Another method of actuating soft grippers is to use a cable
how they combined the two methods into one gripper. mechanism. Chen et. al. designed a topological optimized soft
finger that utilizes a cable mechanism for actuation [15]. Their
three-finger soft robotic gripper is similar in structure to the
pressurized air powered soft grippers. However, it produces
a pinching grip versus a spherical grip [15]. Agarwal et.
al utilizes a similar articulated method as Chen et. al., but
provides a method to reconfigure the gripper to change the
grasping strategy [16]. Figure 5 shows these two cable-driven
soft gripper designs. Understanding the methods of grasping

Fig. 3. Octopus Bioinspired Vacuum Gripper with Suction Cup Array [8]

Various techniques of grasping strategies and methods have

been explored in this section. As research progresses, the
development of grippers that utilize soft materials to allow the
end effector to conform to the object have grown in number.
The next section will explore the ways soft materials can
be used in developing grippers that perform better than past
Fig. 5. Cable-drive Soft Robotic Grippers:Topological Optimized Soft
solutions. Gripper [15] (Left), Re-configurable Cable-driven Soft Gripper [16] (Right)
B. Soft Grippers
Soft robotics is a growing research field with applications with soft grippers and regular grippers, the lesson learned from
in end effector development. The development of soft grippers the designs can be applied in the development of new grippers.
using various articulation have been achieved using pressur- The following section will outline the design choices made in
ized air systems and cable mechanism. The more popular developing and implementing the proposed gripper.

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 III. D ESIGN AND I MPLEMENTATION
To develop the proposed gripper, application of previous
works will be discussed in the following sections. The overall
design of the gripper and the fingers will be outlined to provide
a better understanding of the results from the experiments
conducted.
A. Design of the Gripper
The gripper presented in this paper drew inspiration from
the grasping methods of octopuses. Octopuses have been
studied for many bioinspired research purposes such as swim-
ming robots [17] or bioinspired vacuum grippers [18]. This
paper takes influence but does not try to completely mimic
an octopus limb. The gripper design developed uses a soft
material to mimic an octopus ability to conform around an
object. Also, suction cups are incorporated into the fingers to
mimic the octopus ability adhere to objects. These two aspects
drove design considerations and choices to allow the gripper
to manipulate various shaped objects.
When designing the gripper, the main consideration for
the design was the incorporation of suction cups to mimic
characteristics of an octopus limb. This component drove the
use of cables instead of pressurized air cavities for mechanical
movement of the fingers. In previous research, the soft gripper
was actuated using pressurized air [9], [11], [12]. However,
the assumption for this design was that using pressurized air Fig. 6. Finger Design CAD Model(Left). Finding final tip force with specific
angle parameters(Right)[16]
to actuate a gripper would hinder the ability to use suction to
mimic the adhesive suckers of octopuses. Using other methods
of mechanical movement would require the use of a rigid
body inside the soft material. This was undesirable; therefore, from re-configurable gripper designs by Li et.al and Agarwal
a cable mechanism was used in the design of the fingers et. al. which are hand-based end effectors [16], [19]. These
movement. designs allow for two of the three fingers to rotate to allow for
Many robotic grippers have been designed to use a cable multiple configurations of the hand. This allows for adaptation
mechanism to create a finger-like motion. Agarwal et. al. of the grasping strategy used when picking up an object.
implemented a soft gripper with a cable mechanism to test Using these design considerations, the fingers and hand were
the effects of material properties [16]. Using a single cable modeled in CAD. Figure 7 shows the final gripper design that
mechanism, where the cable runs through the center of the was achieved after testing components in the implementation
finger, would result in the suction cups being off center. This phase.
would cause the cable mechanism to not be in line with the
suction cups. Therefore, the forces applied to the suction cups
would not allow for proper contact and gripping of the object.
Based on this concept, a solution was developed to design a
two-cable system. A two-cable system would allow for the
center of the finger to be used for the suction cups. Figure
6(Left) shows a CAD drawing of the finger design that was
developed for a two-cable system.
This design used knowledge found by Agarwal et. al. on
their finger force model for soft material fingers with a cable
mechanism for movement [16]. Figure 6(Right) shows the
analysis they performed to arrive at the parameters needed
to create a finger with specific forces at the tip of the finger.
After deciding to use a two-cable system for the finger
movement, the hand portion of the gripper needed to allow
for ease of pulling both cables simultaneously. The hand also
needed to allow for multiple configurations of the fingers to
allow for different grasping strategies. Inspiration was drawn Fig. 7. Gripper Design CAD Model

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 With the mechanical and physical components considered, ity to provide additional adhesion while grasping objects. Each
the control systems were designed for movement of the fingers finger accepts a six-millimeter tube which can be connected
and flow control of the vacuum system. To move the fingers, to a vacuum system to provide active suction. To control the
a string is routed through the finger and attached to the vacuum produced at each suction cup, a control system was
servo. By rotating the servo, the finger can be manipulated designed to active and deactivate each suction cup. Figure
to achieve a grasping motion. Dynamixel Smart Servo motors 8(Bottom) shows the system block diagram for the control
were chosen because of their internal control system and their of the vacuum to the suction cups. Six three-way two-position
ability to be connected through a daisy chained, TTL serial solenoid valves are used to control the flow of the vacuum. The
connection. Four Dynamixel XL430-W250 servo motors were control of these solenoids should be implemented in software
chosen because of their ability to operate in position control by analyzing grasping strategies of the gripper and measuring
with 360-degree rotation or extended control, allowing the the load of the vacuum pump.
motor to revolve completely. The Dynamixel Protocol 2.0
allows for an easy TTL serial communication to be established B. Implementation of the Gripper
between the controller and the servos. This allows for a simple
With the completion of the design phase, the system was
USB to TTL adapter, ROBOTIS U2D2, to be used to control
built using various methods of prototyping and fabrication. The
all four servo motors from any PC. More information about the
process that took the longest to understand and implement was
position control of the Dynamixel XL430-W250 can be found
the prototyping of a mold to produce the desired finger design
in [20]. Figure 8(Top) shows the Electronics block diagram of
in a soft material. Several papers were referenced in the design
the gripper. All four servos are powered by a single 12V power
of the finger molds [11], [13], [14], [16]. The common method
of producing soft material fingers is to produce a negative mold
of the finger then cast the finger using a pourable silicone
rubber. Based on the work by Agarwal et. al. on the effects
of material choice in grippers, two types of platinum cure
silicone rubber were used to create the fingers: Smooth-On
Mold Star 30 and Ecoflex 00-30 [16]. Figure 9(Top) shows
the final design of the molds used to produce the fingers.

Fig. 8. Electronics Block Diagram of the Gripper (Top).Vacuum Control

System Block Diagram.(Bottom)

supply and are daisy chained together. With only two inputs
into electronics system, the enclosure encapsulates the USB Fig. 9. Finger Mold CAD Drawing (Top).Silicone Rubber Finger Mold
to TTL adapter and power adapter along with the movement (Bottom Left).Silicone Rubber Soft Robotic Finger(Bottom Right).
mechanisms. Three of the servos are devoted to the control
articulating the fingers. The last servo is used with a pair of The fingers were cast in layers using the two materials.
gears to rotate the orientation of two of the fingers. This allows Ecoflex 00-30 was used for the first layer (the suction cups)
the gripper to changing gripping strategies like the papers and the top layer (the outside of the finger). Mold Star 30 was
explored in the literature survey [5], [6], [16]. used for the middle layer, which includes the bulk of the finger
The suction cups on the fingers were designed with the abil- and the insert for connecting to the hand. Figure 9(Bottom

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Left) shows the mold used in casting. Figure 9(Bottom Right)
shows the different layers of material.
After the finger implementation, the hand parts and gripper
enclosure were prototyped using a Fused Filament Fabrica-
tion (FFF) printer for additive manufacturing. All parts were
printed in PLA for fast, affordable parts that can be reprinted if
the component doesnt work or breaks. Once the components
were printed, they were tested and fitted for final assembly.
Figure 10(Left) shows the internal components of the gripper
enclosure.

Fig. 11. Soft robotic gripper grasping various objects

TABLE I
E XPERIMENT OF WEIGHTED OBJECTS

Fig. 10. Internal components of gripper enclosure(Left). Final Assembled Object Object Type Grasp Type Weight (g)
Soft Robotic Gripper attached to Adept Viper S650(Right) apple sphere spherical 195g
egg ellipsoid spherical 56.3g
small wood block cuboid tip 58.5g
With the final parts fabricated, all components were assem- medium wood block cuboid spherical 116.6g
bled for testing of the gripper. Figure 10(Right) shows the final tape cylinder spherical 119.7g
gripper implemented on an Adept Viper S650 industrial robot. small wood block cylinder spherical 28.3g
medium wood block cylinder cylindrical 92.4g
Utilizing the Dynamixel SDK, a control program was written metal container cylinder cylindrical 124.2g
to synchronously control the four servos in the hand, produce weighted tape ball sphere spherical 144.5g
the desired gripping configuration, and open/close the gripper. weighted container cylinder cylindrical 270g

IV. E XPERIMENTS AND R ESULTS

The gripper was integrated onto an Adept Viper S650 in- With low weight, spherical, or cylindrical objects, the gripper
dustrial robotic arm for testing. During testing, various shaped performs the best. To improve the gripping ability, alternate
objects were grasped to determine the overall capabilities of design parameters could be used for the finger construction.
the implemented soft gripper. Figure 11 shows some of the The gripper showed a tendency to make most of its contact
objects tested to determine the grippers ability to manipulate with the object through the tip of the finger. By improving
objects of various shape. the angles at which the finger contracts, the finger could
The gripper proved to do well with objects that are cylin- make better contact with certain types of objects. Another
drical or spherical in shape; however, it struggled with objects improvement of the gripper construction would be to use a
that were small and flat sided. The three designed grip con- semi-rigid plastic tube inside the silicone for the string to route
figurations, spherical, cylindrical and tip, were evaluated on through, thus reducing wear on the fingers.
ability to grasp the object and the contact of the suction cups. The current control of the gripper is manually configured
Experiments were conducted to evaluate the grippers ability in software. In this design, the software is limited to three
to handle weighted objects. Table I shows the results of the types of gripping configurations. The fingers currently have
weighted test experiments for successfully held objects. only two programmed positions and the fixed finger can be
Heavier weighted objects were tested but the gripper failed disabled while utilizing the tip gripping strategy. The software
to hold those heavier weights. Further discussion of the program was limited in scope due to the timing requirements
weighted experiments will be examined in the discussion for completion of the experiments discussed in the previous
section. section.
For future work, the designed control system for the vacuum
V. D ISCUSSION to the suction cups would need to be implemented with the
The implementation of the physical soft robotic gripper was gripper. With the suction cups in use, the gripper could be
successfully completed without the vacuum system due to more successful with gripping objects of greater weight. Addi-
constraints of the time for implementation. The gripper can tionally, alternate methods of producing suction on the fingers
reconfigure its fingers to allow for multiple gripping strategies. could be explored such as seen in Takahashi et. al octopus

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT Automation, Lijiang, 2015, pp. 1556-1561.
The authors are grateful to the staff of Multi Agent Bio- [20] ROBOTIS Company. ROBOTIS XL430-W250 e-Manual.
Accessed December 15, 2018. [Online]. Available:
Robotics Laboratory (MABL) and the CM Collaborative http://emanual.robotis.com/docs/en/dxl/x/xl430-w250/
Robotics Research (CMCR) Lab for their valuable inputs.
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