DexGrip: Multi-modal Soft Gripper with Dexterous Grasping and In-hand Manipulation Capacity
Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: The ability of robotic grippers to not only grasp but also re-position and re-orient objects in-hand is crucial for achieving versatile, general-purpose manipulation. While recent advances in soft robotic grasping has greatly improved grasp quality and stability, their manipulation capabilities remain under-explored. This paper presents the DexGrip, a multi-modal soft robotic gripper for in-hand grasping, reorientation and manipulation. DexGrip features a 3 Degrees of Freedom (DoFs) active suction palm and 3 active (rotating) grasping surfaces, enabling soft, stable, and dexterous grasping and manipulation without ever needing to re-grasp an object. Uniquely, these features enable complete 360○rotation in all three principal axes. We experimentally demonstrate these capabilities across a diverse set of objects and tasks. DexGrip successfully grasped, re-positioned, and re-oriented objects with widely varying stiffnesses, sizes, weights, and surface textures; and effectively manipulated objects that presented significant challenges for existing robotic grippers.
Authors: Xing Wang, Liam Horrigan, Josh Pinskier, Ge Shi, Vinoth Viswanathan, Lois Liow, Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay, Jen Jen Chung, David Howard
Language: English
Subfield: Biomedical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4411019341