Development of suction cups capable of reducing suction friction

Abstract

In recent years, many robots have been developed that use suction. The most fundamental solution to this problem is to increase the robot's suction force. However, the friction on the contact surface increases with the increase in the clamping force. This increase in friction can be fatal to the robot's operation. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the friction during suction while maintaining or increasing the suction force. This paper presents an experimental analysis of a method to reduce suction friction by applying air pressure to the suction cup. In this study, a chamber for applying air pressure is included at the bottom of the designed suction cup, in addition to the vacuum section. A system to measure static friction using a blower containing a suction cup was constructed, and experiments were conducted to determine under what conditions friction is reduced using a pressure gauge and a force gauge. Based on the measurement results, we discussed the results and proposed the conditions for reducing friction in suction cups using pneumatic pressure.