Grasping objects with diverse mechanical properties, such as heavy, slippery, or fragile items, remains a significant challenge in robotics. Conventional rigid grippers typically rely on increasing the normal forces to secure an object, however, this can cause damage to fragile objects due to excessive force. To address this limitation, we propose a soft rigid hybrid gripper finger that combines rigid structural shells with soft, inflatable silicone pockets, which could be integrated into a conventional gripper. The hybrid gripper can actively modulate its surface friction by varying the internal air pressure of the silicone pockets, enabling the gripper to securely grasp objects without increasing the gripping force. This is demonstrated by fundamental experimental results, in which an increase in internal pressure leads to a proportional increase in the effective coefficient of friction. The gripping experiments also show that the integrated gripper can stably lift heavy and slippery objects or fragile, deformable objects, such as eggs, tofu, fruits, and paper cups, with minimal damage by increasing friction rather than applying high force.

翻译：抓取具有不同机械特性的物体（如重物、易滑物品或易碎物品）仍然是机器人技术中的一项重大挑战。传统的刚性夹持器通常依赖增加法向力来固定物体，然而，过大的力可能导致易碎物体受损。为克服这一局限，我们提出了一种软硬混合夹持器指，它将刚性结构外壳与柔软的可充气硅胶囊相结合，并可集成到传统夹持器中。该混合夹持器能够通过调节硅胶囊的内部气压来主动调控其表面摩擦力，从而在不增加夹持力的情况下牢固抓取物体。基础实验结果验证了这一点：内部压力的增加会导致有效摩擦系数成比例增加。抓取实验还表明，集成后的夹持器能够稳定抓取重物、易滑物品或鸡蛋、豆腐、水果、纸杯等易碎变形物体，且通过增加摩擦力而非施加高作用力，实现了最小化损伤。