Tipo di tesi
Tesi di laurea magistrale
Titolo
Vacuum-Driven Soft Grippers for Delicate Grasping: A Raspberry Harvesting Case
Dipartimento
INGEGNERIA DELL'INFORMAZIONE
Corso di studi
BIONICS ENGINEERING
Parole chiave
- agricultural robotics
- delicate object manipulation
- finite element modeling
- fragile crop handling
- pneumatic structures
- raspberry harvesting
- soft gripper
- soft robotics
- vacuum actuation
Data inizio appello
17/02/2025
Consultabilità
Non consultabile
Data di rilascio
17/02/2028
Riassunto (Italiano)
This thesis presents the development of a vacuum-actuated soft gripper designed for the gentle manipulation of fragile objects, with raspberry harvesting as a use case. The work encompasses the gripper's design, modeling, fabrication, and validation. Inspired by muscle-like pneumatic structures (VAMPs), the gripper features a cylindrical configuration to ensure stable and delicate grasping of objects.
Finite Element Modeling (FEM) was employed to analyze structural behavior, focusing on radial contraction and stress distribution under vacuum actuation. A physical prototype was fabricated and tested using a sensorized raspberry physical twin to evaluate the gripper's performance in terms of applied forces and potential damage to the fruit.
Field tests demonstrated the gripper's effectiveness in real-world conditions, followed by integration into a teleoperated robotic harvesting system. This work advances soft robotics in agriculture, offering an innovative solution for handling delicate crops and setting the stage for broader applications in automated systems.
