Bio-inspired Multitasking Robotic Gripper Design and Development

The purpose of this study is to develop a bird-like claw mechanism that allows amphibious motion for walking, swimming and grasping on land. The inspiration for this work came from birds, which are capable of moving on land and grasping objects, and able to navigate through water. The motion of the bird foot has not been studied in detail before hence there is an opportunity to advance work in this area, and design a bio-inspired mechanism. This paper demonstrates the viability of the use of the claw mechanism for grasping objects compared to the grasping capabilities of the human hand. This claw model has only half the number of joints of a human hand therefore offers lower cost and easier management. Its smaller palm size facilitates the handling of small items. A hardware scaled model of a bird foot is designed to show how simple manipulation tasks can be done.