Taking motivation from nature, researchers created a new type of soft, robotic gripper that employs a network of thin arms to entangle and get objects, similar to how jellyfish collect their victim. The grippers strength and versatility come from its ability to entangle itself with the item it is attempting to grasp. The curls knot and entangle with each other and the object, with each entanglement increasing the strength of the hold. While the cumulative hold is strong, each contact is individually weak and will not harm even the most vulnerable object. To release the item, the filaments are just depressurized.
The research study was released in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Soft gripper understands succulent. Credit: Harvard Microrobotics Lab/Harvard SEAS
” With this research, we wanted to reimagine how we connect with items,” stated Kaitlyn Becker, former college student and postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and very first author of the paper. “By taking advantage of the natural compliance of soft robotics and improving it with a compliant structure, we designed a gripper that is higher than the sum of its parts and a comprehending strategy that can adapt to a variety of complex items with minimal planning and understanding.”
Becker is presently an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT.
The grippers strength and versatility come from its capability to entangle itself with the item it is attempting to comprehend. The foot-long filaments are hollow, rubber tubes. One side of television has thicker rubber than the other, so when television is pressurized, it curls like a pigtail or like straightened hair on a rainy day.
A video showing the robotic. Credit: Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
The curls knot and entangle with each other and the things, with each entanglement increasing the strength of the hold. While the cumulative hold is strong, each contact is individually weak and will not harm even the most delicate item. To release the object, the filaments are just depressurized.
The researchers used experiments and simulations to check the efficacy of the gripper, getting a variety of items, consisting of various houseplants and toys. The gripper might be utilized in real-world applications to understand soft fruits and veggies for agricultural production and distribution, delicate tissue in medical settings, and even irregularly shaped things in storage facilities, such as glassware.
This brand-new approach to understanding combines Professor L. Mahadevans research on the topological mechanics of entangled filaments with Professor Robert Woods research on soft robotic grippers.
” Entanglement allows each extremely compliant filament to adhere locally with a target things resulting in a safe but gentle topological grasp that is reasonably independent of the details of the nature of the contact,” stated Mahadevan, the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics in SEAS, and of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and Physics in FAS and co-corresponding author of the paper.
” This new approach to robotic comprehending complements existing options by replacing simple, traditional grippers that need intricate control methods with extremely certified, and morphologically complicated filaments that can operate with extremely simple control,” said Wood, the Harry Lewis and Marlyn McGrath Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences and co-corresponding author of the paper. “This method broadens the series of whats possible to get with robotic grippers.”
Reference: “Active entanglement enables stochastic, topological understanding” by Kaitlyn Becker, Clark Teeple, Nicholas Charles, Yeonsu Jung, Daniel Baum, James C. Weaver, L. Mahadevan and Robert Wood, 10 October 2022, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.DOI: 10.1073/ pnas.2209819119.
The research study was funded by the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation, the Simons Foundation, and the Henri Seydoux Fund.
Close-up of the grippers filaments covering around an item. Credit: Harvard Microrobotics Lab/Harvard SEAS
A jellyfish-like soft gripper imitates the mechanics of curly hair.
You know how challenging it is to hold and grasp onto items with robotic grippers if you have ever played the claw game at a game. Picture how much more stressful that video game would be if you were attempting to grab a fragile piece of threatened coral or valuable treasure from a sunken ship rather of soft stuffed animals.
Most of todays robotic grippers use a combination of the operators ability and ingrained sensors, complex feedback loops, or innovative machine-learning algorithms to grasp delicate or irregularly shaped items. However, scientists at Harvards John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have revealed that there is an easier technique.
Taking inspiration from nature, researchers produced a new type of soft, robotic gripper that uses a network of thin arms to entangle and get objects, similar to how jellyfish collect their prey. Private filaments, or tentacles, are not extremely strong by themselves. Nevertheless, when utilized as a group, the filaments can securely grip and hold things of all shapes and sizes. The gripper doesnt need picking up, planning, or feedback control; it counts on easy inflation to twist around items.
By Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
December 5, 2022
