US 12,441,004 B2
Robotic grippers
Nikhil Chavan Dafle, Jersey City, NJ (US); Alberto Rodriguez Garcia, Cambridge, MA (US); Neel Doshi, Cambridge, MA (US); and Ian Hernand Taylor, Cambridge, MA (US)
Assigned to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (US)
Filed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (US)
Filed on Sep. 8, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/469,196.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/088,113, filed on Oct. 6, 2020.
Prior Publication US 2022/0105642 A1, Apr. 7, 2022
Int. Cl. B25J 15/08 (2006.01); B25J 9/16 (2006.01); B25J 15/00 (2006.01); B25J 19/00 (2006.01); F16D 49/00 (2006.01); F16D 55/02 (2006.01); F16D 121/08 (2012.01)
CPC B25J 15/0004 (2013.01) [B25J 9/1612 (2013.01); B25J 15/0038 (2013.01); B25J 15/08 (2013.01); B25J 19/0004 (2013.01); F16D 49/00 (2013.01); F16D 55/02 (2013.01); F16D 2121/08 (2013.01); G05B 2219/39001 (2013.01); G05B 2219/39466 (2013.01)] 18 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A robotic gripper comprising:
a first gripper finger and a second gripper finger, each of the first and second gripper fingers comprising:
a body portion;
a rotatable contact pad configured to contact an article and operatively connected to the body portion; and
a brake configured to selectively maintain a fixed orientation of the rotatable contact pad relative to the body portion when engaged,
wherein the rotatable contact pad of the first gripper finger and the rotatable contact pad of the second gripper finger are adapted to rotate relative to the first and second gripper fingers about a single common axis of rotation, and wherein the first and second gripper fingers and the brake are configured such that a braking force applied by the brake is independent of a gripping force applied to the article by the first and second gripper fingers.