DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A LEAD SCREW GRIPPER FOR ROBOTIC APPLICATION

This paper gives details on the electromechanical design concept and prototype development of a lead screw linear actuated, parallel robotic gripper. Robotic applications are known to be catering to many industries from a range of tasks namely pick & place, material handling, as fixtures, tool & instrument holders etc. These application specific robots are equipped with end effectors customised with design appropriate for the application. In this paper, presented are the details for the design of an end effector also known as the gripper which works on a lead screw linear mechanism actuated by a dc motor. The gripper of stroke 100 mm is designed to hold bottles, tools or pick and place objects of rectangular section of 90mm x 90mm or of circular section of 90mm diameter and up to 3kg weight. Mechanical assembly comprises a sheet metal fixture plate holding the actuating components and a sheet metal gripper plate performing the gripping action. The motor is driven by a 24V, 2A dc motor driver. The gripping action is sensed and signalled by a force sensitive resistor. Prototype development of the gripper and on/off testing for the gripping action is investigated. The mechanical construction for this unique lead screw gripper is observed to be robust and can be used as an end effector to a suitable robotic arm.