This 3D printed gripper doesn’t need electronics to function
This soft robotic gripper is not only 3D printed in one print, it also doesn’t need any electronics to work.
The device was developed by a team of roboticists at the University of California San Diego, in collaboration with researchers at the BASF corporation, who detailed their work in a recent issue of Science Robotics.
The researchers wanted to design a soft gripper that would be ready to use right as it comes off the 3D printer, equipped with built in gravity and touch sensors. As a result, the gripper can pick up, hold, and release objects. No such gripper existed before this work.
“We designed functions so that a series of valves would allow the gripper to both grip on contact and release at the right time,” said Yichen Zhai, a postdoctoral researcher in the Bioinspired Robotics and Design Lab at the University of California San Diego and the leading author of the paper, which was published in the June 21 issue of Science Robotics. “It’s the first time such a gripper can both grip and release. All you have to do is turn the gripper horizontally. This triggers a change in the airflow in the valves, making the two fingers of the gripper release.”
This fluidic logic allows the robot to remember when it has grasped an object and is holding on to it. When it detects the weight of the object pushing to the side, as it is rotating to the horizontal, it releases the object.
Soft robotics holds the promise of allowing robots to interact safely with humans and delicate objects. This gripper can be mounted on a robotic arm for industrial manufacturing applications, food production and the handling of fruits and vegetables. It can also be mounted onto a robot for research and exploration tasks. In addition, it can function untethered, with a bottle of high-pressure gas as its only power source.
Most 3D-printed soft robots often have a certain degree of stiffness; contain a large number of leaks when they come off the printer; and need a fair amount of processing and assembly after printing in order to be usable. More