New Soft Robotic Gripper Could Be Fine Fit in Greenhouses

By ScienceDaily|December 20, 2020

Researchers at the University of Georgia College of Engineering have designed a new soft robotic gripper that draws inspiration from an unusual source: pole beans.

While pole beans and other twining plants use their touch-sensitive shoots to wrap themselves around supports like ropes and rods to grow upward, the UGA team’s robot is designed to firmly but gently grasp objects as small as 1 millimeter in diameter.

“We had tried different designs but we were not happy with the results, then I recalled the pole beans I grew in our garden few years ago,” said Mable Fok, an associate professor and the study’s lead author. “This plant can hold onto other plants or rope so tightly. So, I did some research on twining plants and thought it was a good design from nature for us to explore.”

In a new study published in the journal Optics Express, the researchers say their soft robotic spiral gripper offers several advantages over existing robotic devices, including an embedded sensor to provide critical real-time feedback.

The researchers believe their soft robotic gripper — a little more than 3 inches long and fashioned from silicone — could be useful in many settings, including agriculture, medicine, and research. Applications might include selecting and packaging agricultural products that require a soft touch such as plants and flowers, surgical robotics, or selecting and holding research samples in fragile glass tubes during experiments.