Automated design of pneumatic soft grippers through design-dependent multi-material topology optimization

In recent years, soft robotic grasping has rapidly spread through the academic robotics community and pushed into industrial applications. At the same time, multimaterial 3D printing has become widely available, enabling monolithic manufacture of devices containing rigid and elastic section. We propose a novel design technique which leverages both of these technologies and is able to automatically design bespoke soft robotic grippers for fruit-picking and similar applications. We demonstrate the novel topology optimisation formulation which generates multi-material soft gippers and is able to solve both the internal and external pressure boundaries, and investigate methods to produce air-tight designs. Compared to existing methods, it vastly expands the searchable design space whilst increasing simulation accuracy.