See an elephant-inspired robotic gripper picking grapes like a pro

Elephants have amazing trunks. They can pick up small sticks and large logs with dexterity and ease. The same curl design inspired researchers from the University of New South Wales in Sydney to create a robotic gripper that can grab anything from a syringe to a hammer.

“Our new soft fabric gripper is thin, flat, lightweight and can hold and receive a variety of objects, even from confined spaces, such as a pen inside a t-shirt.” Medical robotics expert Thanh No said Monday in a statement to UNSW. Doo is the co-author of an article on Gripper published last week in the Journal of Advanced Materials Technologies.

UNSW shared a video of a prototype wrapping around a variety of things, including a screwdriver, handsaw, cucumber, and even a grape. Its flexibility and sensitivity means it can be used to handle delicate and fragile objects without crushing them.

While robotic gadgets may seem simple, there’s 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 caliper body from flexible to rigid and inverted, allowing it to grip and hold objects of different sizes and weights – 220 times the mass of the caliper. Heavy, “he said.

The team is now working on connecting the gripper to capture the robotic weapon. Pairing the Gripper with a Liver Glove Allows human operators to realize what a robot is doing. The device may be commercially available within two years.

In recent years, we’ve seen an increase in nature-inspired robotics, from everything. Boston Dynamics Robot dog-like spot To one Harvard octopus-like robotic tent. Our future overloading robots might look like the hooves of many animals.