Robot Builder's Bonanza, 4th Edition, 4th Edition

Chapter 29Experimenting with Robotic Grippers

Arms aren’t much good without hands. In the robotics world, hands are usually called grippers (also end effectors) because the word more closely describes their function. Few robotic hands can manipulate objects with the fine motor control of a human hand; they simply grasp or grip the object, hence the name gripper. Never sticklers for semantics, I’ll use the terms hands and grippers interchangeably.

Gripper designs are numerous, and no single design is ideal for all applications. Each gripper technique has unique advantages over the others, and you must fit the gripper to the application at, er, hand. This chapter outlines a number of useful gripper designs you can use for your robots. Most are ...