Robot hand with sensor for handling cloth

Abstract

A robot hand to handle cloth is presented. In the study carried out, the authors tried to pick up a piece of cloth from a stack of cloth, to judge its thickness and to control the tension of it by the robot hand with a strain gauge sensor. The robot hand has two fingers with two degrees of freedom. One finger's tip was made from balsa wood, the other was made from balsa wood and phosphorus bronze plate with strain gauge sensor. The robot hand was attached to a robot arm and picked up a piece of cloth in cooperative motion with the robot arm. The hand was able to pick up a piece of wool cloth 0.4 mm in thickness. And it was able to pick up a piece of rayon cloth 0.2 mm in thickness in some trials by an automatic adjusting software. Sensor output was nearly in proportion to the thickness of cloth picked up. And sensor output was nearly in proportion to the tension of the cloth too.<>