A group of scientists and innovators over at the Japan Advanced Institute of Technology have devised a high-tech robotic gripper that is designed to offer the positioning and sensitivity required in robot-based gripping tools whilst addressing many of the standing disadvantages.
Specifically, existing robotic grippers designed to be able to handle delicate and fragile objects tend to be expensive. The Japanese team have taken steps to address this by developing a soft robotic gripper that uses a funnel-like component that is linked to a circular foundation, with the funnel element placed over objects to pick them up without causing damage.
Dubbed the ‘rotation-based squeezing gripper’ or ‘ROSE’ for short, this particular robotic gripper is inspired by the fragility of nature and flowers, and is positioned as an innovation that will make robotic grippers designed for softer and more delicate items less expensive to produce and deploy.
Image Credit: Japan Advanced Institute of Technology
