The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 20, 2025
Filed:
Nov. 01, 2021
Board of Trustees of Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI (US);
Changyong Cao, Okemos, MI (US);
Xiaobo Tan, Okemos, MI (US);
Yaokun Pang, East Lansing, MI (US);
Shoue Chen, East Lansing, MI (US);
Board of Trustees of Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI (US);
Abstract
A soft gripper apparatus is provided. In another aspect, a soft gripper includes tribo-skin pressure sensors, an internal bending sensor, at least one flexible gripping finger and an actuator. A further aspect of a soft gripper apparatus employs longitudinally elongated, laterally spaced apart and self-powering, electrically conductive strips that sense and send a bending signal to a programmable controller indicative of a bending angle of a gripping finger within which the strips are encapsulated. Another aspect of a gripping apparatus includes at least one workpiece pressure sensor and/or at least one bending sensor, which are connected to a programmable controller and electrical circuit to automatically determine a characteristic of the workpiece.