The ability to grab, hold, and manipulate objects is a vital and fundamental operation in biological and engineering systems. Here, we present a soft gripper using a simple material system that enables precise and rapid grasping, and can be miniaturized, modularized, and remotely actuated. This soft gripper is based on kirigami shells—thin, elastic shells patterned with an array of cuts. The kirigami cut pattern is determined by evaluating the shell’s mechanics and geometry, using a combination of experiments, finite element simulations, and theoretical modeling, which enables the gripper design to be both scalable and material independent. We demonstrate that the kirigami shell gripper can be readily integrated with an existing robotic platform or remotely actuated using a magnetic field. The kirigami cut pattern results in a simple unit cell that can be connected together in series, and again in parallel, to create kirigami gripper arrays capable of simultaneously grasping multiple delicate and slippery objects. These soft and lightweight grippers will have applications in robotics, haptics, and biomedical device design.

抓取、保持和操纵物体的能力是生物和工程系统中至关重要的基本操作。在这里，我们展示了一种使用简单材料系统的软抓手，可以实现精确和快速的抓取，并且可以小型化、模块化和远程驱动。这款柔软的抓手基于剪纸贝壳——薄而有弹性的贝壳，带有一系列切口图案。kirigami 切割模式是通过评估外壳的力学和几何形状，结合实验、有限元模拟和理论建模来确定的，这使得夹具设计既可扩展又不受材料影响。我们证明了 kirigami 外壳抓手可以很容易地与现有的机器人平台集成或使用磁场远程驱动。kirigami 切割图案产生一个简单的单元，可以串联连接在一起，再次并联，以创建能够同时抓取多个精致和光滑物体的 kirigami 夹持器阵列。这些柔软轻便的抓手将应用于机器人、触觉和生物医学设备设计。