Object Manipulation Using Pneumatically Driven Soft Fingers with Polyurethane Bend Sensor

In this paper, we focus on pinching motion using soft fingers with polyurethane bend sensors. First, in order to unify the control time until the soft fingers touch the object to be grasped, trajectory tracking control was introduced and the control performance was evaluated. Control was possible with an error of about 0.2m−1. After realizing stable grasping by trajectory tracking control, we measured the relationship between the curvature difference of each finger and the orientation of the gripping object. Based on the above relationship, the orientation of the object was actually controlled. As a result, orientation control is possible with an error of about 1 degree.