There are many end-effectors used for industrial robots in accordance with various works. In particular, the end effector used for gripping an object is called a gripper and in general exchanging gripper in accordance with the shape and direction of an object at industrial line. However, the complex calculations are required for exchanging changing grippers, making grip plans in accordance with the selected gripper, and estimating the direction of an object. These works become a bottleneck in automating industrial lines. Therefore, at Nishida Lab, we research on universal grippers which can grip the various shaped object in order to solve the bottleneck. We developed a novel universal gripper (MRα Fluid Gripper). This gripper has the advantage that it can abbreviate the complex calculations.

MRα fluid is generated by adding nonmagnetic particle to the typical Magnetorheological (MR) fluid. MR fluid is smart fluid that its viscosity is controlled by magnetic force. We could develop a novel universal gripper by using MRα fluid.