Soft-Jig-Driven Assembly Operations

To design a general-purpose assembly robot system that can handle objects of various shapes, we propose a soft jig that fits to the shapes of assembly parts. The functionality of the soft jig is based on a jamming gripper developed in the field of soft robotics. The soft jig has a bag covered with a malleable silicone membrane, which has high friction, elongation, and contraction rates for keeping parts fixed. The bag is filled with glass heads to achieve a jamming transition. We propose a method to configure parts-lixing on the soft jig based on contact relations, reachable directions, and the center of gravity of the parts that are fixed on the jig. The usability of the soft jig was evaluated in terms of the fixing performance and versatility for various shapes and postures of parts.