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An Electroadhesive Paper Gripper With Application to a Document-Sorting Robot

Robotic process automation (RPA) is automating various job processes in many offices. However, most existing RPA systems automate only processes that are performed on computers. It is highly desirable to develop physical RPA systems that incorporate real robots to automate physical job processes. When developing physical RPA systems, handling paper is particularly important because many physical office jobs involve handling paper documents. However, it is not easy for robots to handle paper because paper is fragile. To address this issue, we propose an electroadhesive paper gripper in this study. The use of electroadhesion enables a robot to handle paper in a simple, non-destructive, and quiet manner. We provide (1) a mechanism for lifting a sheet of paper without accurate control of robot hands, (2) a mechanism for a small gripper to hold a large sheet of paper without bending it, and (3) a method for quickly releasing a sheet of paper. Furthermore, we apply the proposed paper gripper to a document-sorting robot. The robot that we have developed automatically arranges a given stack of paper documents in a predetermined order (e.g., alphabetical or numerical). Experimental results show the validity of the paper gripper and the sorting robot.