Harvard University Creates Soft Robotic Limbs Which Deftly Pick Up Flowers!
Thanks to the newly developed gentle robotic tentacles made of flexible plastic created by George Whitesides and team at Harvard University, fragile things (like flowers) won't be harmed when handled by them. The soft protuberance employs three air channels to get a reptile like movement, and it can twist around a flower very smoothly without damaging it a bit. Selectively inflating any one channel cause the tentacle to bend and curl around objects with a slight grip.
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Selectively pumping air into these channels causes the tentacle to bend, allowing it to coil about objects with a light grip. Other previously devised robotic tentacles had limited movement in just one direction. Practically, these tentacles show a lot of promise in dealing with fragile objects, and also experiments were carried out where the limbs were equipped with cameras, suction cups and syringes- to see if it could surgically be of use. The one limitation that made it unusable for surgery is that the air channels prohibit it from scaling down.
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Selectively pumping air into these channels causes the tentacle to bend, allowing it to coil about objects with a light grip. Other previously devised robotic tentacles had limited movement in just one direction. Practically, these tentacles show a lot of promise in dealing with fragile objects, and also experiments were carried out where the limbs were equipped with cameras, suction cups and syringes- to see if it could surgically be of use. The one limitation that made it unusable for surgery is that the air channels prohibit it from scaling down.
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