Stanford AA289/ENGR319 - Robotics and Autonomous Systems Seminar - Stanford Seminar - Designing Robotic Grippers for Interaction with Real-World Environments

January 20, 2023 Tony Chen of Stanford University Equipping robots with the functionality to traverse and interact with real-world environments beyond the laboratory is the crucial next step in advancing robotics, particularly for field robotic surveying and exploration. In order to achieve this, robots need to have the capability of interacting with the environment – that is, the capability to manipulate. In this talk, I will discuss the design, prototype, and experimentation process of two grippers for two robotic systems. First, I will introduce a gripper for aerial grasping with drones in mid-flight, where starting from simple dynamic models leads to the design principles behind a passively activated gripper, and the implications of flight controls. Second, I will introduce ReachBot, a novel rock climbing robot designed for planetary exploration such as Martian lava tubes, and focus on the mechanical design challenges and the gripper designs. #robotics