An drone-ready compliant gripper used to grab circular objects.
This 4 Prong gripper has been 3D printed and is powered by shape memory alloys. Due to the high energy density of these alloys, the entire gripper weighs only 17g.
The gripper is based around a compliant mechanism that takes one input and transforms it into 4 outputs that actuate radially. The mechanism has been designed using topology optimisation and improved using human intuition.
Sean Thomas - Smart Robotics PhD 