I participated in Hack-A-Thing, a BMW sponsored competition to design a gripper with sensors to accurately pick up and move objects to proper locations. The gripper was attached onto the end of a UR5 robot. I worked on the electronics parts including servo motors, pressure sensors and air pump controlled with Mbed, while my teammate worked on the gripper model.

CAD model of gripper and all the electronics.

Universal Grippers have compliant end-effectors which use soft surfaces and suction to grasp objects with odd geometries. We proposed an improved design, the “Universal-Hybrid” gripper; it has three independent fingers with compliant material on the ends of the fingers and in the palm of the hand. This hybrid design allows for an object to be touched by multiple points, and the dexterous fingers and large palm will ensure that as much surface area is contacting the object as possible.

Here is a video showing the working gripper.