This ongoing project at the PERCH lab in the Pennovation Center seeks to create a low-cost grasping device that gently conforms to the shape of the object of interest.  This device, contrary to industrial end effectors, can conform to a wide variety of objects of a priori unknown shape and size.  And, unlike newer experimental conforming grippers, this design is comprised of entirely planar sheets of inexpensive material and off-the-shelf fasteners.

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The primary innovation is a mechanism to cause a chain of phalanges to close around an object.  Each phalange is nominally held "open" or away from the target using a rubberband, spring, or other tension cable.  A single wire actuated by tension runs through all the phalanges to pull them around the object.  Each phalange closes sequentially; the next phalange only begins to close when the previous has contacted the object.