This design was created in along with two other members of the Northeastern University Mars Rover Team, who did a lot of the initial work of layout and general features, after which I did most of the finalization of the design, the claws of the gripper, and iterating on the design to fix minor physical issues we encountered.
This was an iteration on our previous lead screw driven gripper design where the screws were fixed and the grips slid in a slot profile along them. That design had the downside of being very bulky even when it was closed.
This version seeks to have the advantage of a parallelogram gripper, such that it is only as big as it is open, while having a constant distance of a lead screw design, by making the lead screws move in and out, and rotating the nuts around them in the central hub using cross axis helical gears. However, this has the downside that all your clamping load is put through the single guide rod, and the lead screw, which can cause issues.
