Octopus bioinspired vacuum gripper with micro bumps

Abstract

This paper describes an octopus bioinspired vacuum gripper for transportation or assembly of industrial parts. The previous gripper can grasp the object with flat, curvature, uneven, and grooved surface. However, octopus has the microstructure on suction cup, for example, cylindrical and radial grooves and micro bump. These structure is expected to improved flexibility and adhesive force of suction cup. Therefore, we evaluated the performance of octopus bioinspired gripper with micro bump of 2 micrometer in diameter and 4 micrometer in pitch. Using micro bump, The adhesive force is increased. Moreover, adhesive area is kept circle shape, since the friction force is increased by the micro bumps.