Improving the Response Time of a Soft Robotic Gripper Using a Heat Sink with Shape Memory Alloy Actuators

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This study focuses on the time response analysis of a nickel titanium (NiTi) shape memory alloy-based soft robotic gripper with variable stiffness, with a particular emphasis on reducing the cooling time, which will ultimately lead to a faster response time.The manufacturing of the shape memory alloy is not covered in this work.The impact of a heat sink comprising a silicone casing and an ethylene glycol thermal compound on the response time was examined using Finite Element Analysis.The cylindrical cross-section of the gripper's finger was created as a three-dimensional model.Numerical analysis was done using Ansys Workbench, and experimental results validated the numerical results with a 1.12% percentage difference.A 36% overall improvement in response time was observed, indicating that the proposed heat sink is capable of acceleration the rate of heat dissipation from the shape memory alloy, and in turn improves the response time of the gripper.