Electrostatics help to get a grip on awkward and fragile objects

Moving fragile objects is a major issue for many industries, notably food and drink. Natural objects like fruits and vegetables have unique and unpredictable shapes and sizes, and often must not be damaged as they are moved around. This makes packing and handling difficult to automate, and necessitates human involvement, which pushes up producer costs and therefore increases prices.

Soft robotics – making robotic manipulators out of plastics and gels – is a promising avenue for development of automated equipment which can handle this problem. Generally soft robots mimic some aspect of human physiology to gently grip and move items while conforming to their shape, exerting enough force to take the item’s weight without damaging it. At the Ecole Polytechnique Fedéral de Lausanne (EPFL), researchers have developed a soft robotic gripper that uses electrostatic forces to pick up objects of arbitrary shape and stiffness, such as eggs, water-filled balloons of pieces of paper.