Metamaterial-based soft grippers for harvesting fragile crops

Robot-assisted harvesting of delicate fruits is a technological challenge due to the contradictory requirements on robotic grippers that must deliver conformal grasping and versatile plucking without damaging the crops. To address this problem, we propose a robotic gripper with two extended fingers and a removable metamaterial layer, the topological structure of which is optimized for a proper balance between stiff and soft behavior and advanced conformability to diverse fruit shapes. We prove the advanced grasping functionality of the gripper numerically and experimentally by handling truss tomatoes.