A Novel Human-Safe Robotic Gripper: An application of a Programmable Permanent Magnet Actuator

While collaborative robotic arms offer significant safety benefits, safety of the overall manipulator system cannot be guaranteed unless equally strict safety requirements are satisfied by the accompanying end-effector. Current robot grippers are not made in a way that fulfills such a requirement, resulting in collaborative robots needing to operate in a protected environment. This paper presents a novel permanent magnet actuator inside of a conventional industrial electric gripper which results in an end-effector that has an unmatched force range of 1-2N to 43N and exhibits interesting characteristics suited to the requirements of a safe gripper such as torque holding without power, variable stiffness and force sensing.