UNSW engineering researchers create a soft fabric robotic gripper inspired by nature.
Video screenshot by Amanda Kooser / CNET
Elephants have amazing trunks. They can pick up small sticks and large logs with dexterity and ease. The same curling design inspired researchers at the University of New South Wales in Sydney to create a robotic gripper that could grasp everything from a syringe to a hammer.
“Our new soft fabric gripper is thin, flat, light weight and can hold and receive a variety of items – even from limited spaces – for example, a pen inside a t-shirt.” Medical robotics expert Thanh No said in a statement to UNSW on Monday. Doo is the co-author of a paper on the published Gripper In the Journal of Advanced Materials Technologies last week.
UNSW shared a video of a prototype of wrapping itself around a variety of things, including a screwdriver, a hand saw, a cucumber and even a grape. Its flexibility and sensitivity mean that it can be used to handle delicate and fragile objects without crushing them.
While robotic gadgets may look simple, there is a lot of technology out there with small devices. The gripper uses a force sensor to apply the right amount of pressure to an object.
“There is also a thermally efficient mechanism that can change the body of the gripper from flexible to rigid and inverted, enabling it to grasp and hold objects of different sizes and weights – 220 times the mass of the gripper. Heavy, “he said.
The team is now working on attaching the gripper to catch the robotic weapon. Pairing the gripper With a hepatic glove Allows human operators to realize what a robot does. The device may be commercially available within two years.
We’ve seen an increase in nature-inspired robotics in recent years, from everything. Boston Dynamics Dog-like spot robot To one Octopus-like robotic tent from Harvard. Our future robot overloaders may look like the hooves of many animals.
