カットケーキの箱詰め作業を可能とする薄型ソフトロボットハンドの開発

抄録

In the food industry, automation using robots is highly demanded due to the influence of labor shortage. In this paper, we developed a pneumatically driven soft robot hand with thin and flexible fingers having thickness of 5 mm. With the developed soft robot hand, it is possible to arrange and pack cakes of different sizes and shapes without damaging them. In order to manufacture the thin finger, we proposed a new manufacturing method in which a soft skeleton part is embedded in the air chamber of the flexible finger. By using this manufacturing method, it was possible to simplify the manufacturing process of flexible fingers and improve the strength of the hand. Experiments were conducted to measure the gripping force and pack three different cut cakes.