Grabit Aims To Revolutionize Robotic Grippers Using Electrostatic Attraction

Remember the school days when picking up paper bits using static electricity was among the primary uses of your plastic ruler? A startup by the name of Grabit Inc. has taken the same idea to a whole new level, albeit in a more sophisticated fashion. They have developed a robot hand which makes use of electrostatic attraction to lift things up. This technique is called electroadhesion and Grabit successfully demonstrated their product (using electroadhesion) at RoboBusiness Conference in Boston. The startup has emerged from the research efforts at the SRI International.


The industry was already using this technique to handle micro-sized electronic components. But it was not suitable to use it in case of dust-ridden environments or in case of irregularly shaped objects; the reason being that the strength of adhesion is directly related to the contact surface area of the object being lifted. Grabit used flexible materials that have the same electrostatic properties to manufacture their gripper. This allowed the gripper to dynamically adjust to the surface of the object being lifted.


While the multi-billion dollar material handling industry uses part-specific, bulky, energy-intensive conventional gripper technology, Grabit aims to revolutionize this industry with what they describe as a 'disruptive technology'. Their grippers use low power, they are flexible, they handle the material gently and they are economical. This could allow robots to take over the handling tasks involving very delicate materials like manufacturing advanced solar cells and micro-PCBs. Also, the efficiency of material handling robots can be improved, in general.

Grabit have posted many videos demoing their gripper handling a variety of objects, ranging from soft drink cans to iPads.

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