Universal Robotic Gripper Picks Up Any Object With Equal Ease

Building an universal robotic manipulator that is capable of gripping firmly has been a challenging task owing to the different shapes and sizes of unfamiliar objects. Of course, we do have the grippers with multiple fingers (resembling the human hand) but they come with lots of joints that need force-sensing and thus bring forth unnecessary hardware and software complexities. So, the folks at Cornell Creative Machines Lab have come up with the concept of a single mass of granular material to replace the fingered hand. This universal robotic gripper when pressed onto a target object, flows around it and conforms to its shape; thus eliminating the chances of crushing the object because of extra stress applied.



This robotic gripper uses vacuum to contract the granular material according to the shape of the object that is to be picked and hardens quickly to pinch and hold the object without requiring sensory feedback. How amazing is that? The developers found that three mechanisms - friction, suction, and interlocking are enough to build the gripping force. As you can see our robotic gripper has become a product of simple yet highly adaptive system design. We like it and look forward to immense applications that it will bring.

You may want to check out the gripper in action in the video below -


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