Design and Characteristic Evaluation of a Novel Clamping Mechanism for Amphibious Spherical Bionic Robots

The motion function and control of amphibious robots is a hot topic at present. The multi-function of robot is the development trend of robot. In this paper, based on the existing prototype bionic robot in the laboratory, the structure of the robot’s mechanical leg is updated, and the underwater grasping function is successfully added. The new mechanical leg integrates a mechanical claw device, which makes use of the geometric characteristics of the parallelogram to shrink the mechanical claw, maximizes the use of the limited space below the robot, and greatly extends the effective length of the grasping end of the mechanical claw. At the same time, through static stress analysis and motion simulation, the designed structure was evaluated and analyzed, and the appropriate servo specifications and structure size were obtained, which verified that the current designed structure can complete the grasping task of 3kg objects. Finally, 3D printing technology was used to complete the production of the first version of the new mechanical leg, and the functional verification experiment of grasping objects of two different sizes was completed by using the steering gear control.