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An air-filled microgripper in microassembly system with coaxial alignment function

Xin Ye, Chao Shao, Zhijing Zhang, Jun Gao, Yang Yu

Assembly Automation

ISSN: 0144-5154

Article publication date: 9 September 2014

284

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to design a microgripper that can achieve nondestructive gripping of a miniaturized ultra-thin-walled cylindrical part.

Design/methodology/approach

The microgripper is mainly made of an inflatable silica gel gasbag, which can minimize the damage to the part in the gripping process. This paper introduces the design principle of a flexible air-filled microgripper, which is applied in an in-house microassembly system with coaxial alignment function. Its parameters and performance specifications have been obtained by simulation, experiment demarcating. The results show that the microgripper is able to grasp an ultra-thin-walled part non-destructively.

Findings

For the microgripper, finite element simulations and experiments were carried out, and both results indicate that the microgripper can achieve nondestructive gripping of a miniaturized ultra-thin-walled cylindrical part, with good stability, great grasping force and high repeat positioning accuracy.

Originality/value

Gripping the ultra-thin-walled part may lead to deformation and destruction easily. It has been a big bottleneck hindering successful assembly. This article introduces a novel microgripper using an inflatable sac. The work is interesting from an industrial point of view for a specific category of assembly applications. It provides a theoretical guidance and technical support to design a microgripper for a miniaturized ultra-thin-walled part of different sizes.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51127004) and (51105036). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Citation

Ye, X., Shao, C., Zhang, Z., Gao, J. and Yu, Y. (2014), "An air-filled microgripper in microassembly system with coaxial alignment function", Assembly Automation, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 333-341. https://doi.org/10.1108/AA-02-2014-019

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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