Fig. 5: Delicate fruit picking using the proposed gripper.

a Demonstration of the proposed gripper picking up a strawberry from a desk. The two tactile array sensors in the parallel pinch configuration provided force feedback for handling the fragile fruit, after which the active palm moved downward to contact the fruit surface, stabilizing the grasp while capturing its surface geometry. b Qualitative results of the gripper performance on fragile fruit. The first row shows images captured under incandescent light, and the second row under UV light. Surface images of the same strawberry before and after the experiments are compared with a naturally bruised fruit. By day 4, the naturally bruised fruit exhibited darker coloration under incandescent light and larger recessed regions under UV light, whereas the experimental fruit showed no visible bruising. c Demonstration of the gripper picking and placing various fruits to assemble a fruit plate. d Tactile features sensed on the five fruits by the proposed gripper. The first column shows the GelSight tactile depth image from the active palm, and the last three columns show the tactile array signals from the fingers.