Bottle gripper design and motion control

This thesis is a part of a process of improving the scope of Currence Robotics' picking robot. The robot is an autonomous machine, designed for picking and stacking goods. Their problem statement concerns bottle gripping, which they would like to solve by creating a mechanical gripper, and developing a software for its motion, with both manual and autonomous control. The approach for the gripper was to study various bottle characteristics, create a design draft, develop two 3D models of the design; one for proof of concept testing and one final version, and assemble and test the prototypes. Regarding the motion control, the approach was to develop a software that could easily be integrated with the robot's program, and create platforms for manual and autonomous operations. The final version of the gripper was able to handle most of the gripping objectives, and provided a good foundation for further development. As for the motion control, the developed software was able to exploit live measurements of the motor torque in order to detect if the gripper had gripped an object. Furthermore, the manual and autonomous platforms provided the desired access and control attributes towards the end effector. Currence Robotics is pleased with the work and the results that have been accomplished throughout the thesis. The prototype contributed to improving the robot's picking abilities and brought the company closer to a final product.