Nature inspires entangled filaments gripper

The advance overcomes issues with current robotic grippers that rely on embedded sensors, complex feedback loops, or advanced machine learning algorithms, combined with the skill of the operator, to grasp fragile or irregularly shaped objects.

The team at SEAS designed a new type of soft, robotic gripper that uses a collection of thin tentacles to entangle and ensnare objects, similar to how jellyfish collect stunned prey. The gripper, which has been used to grasp and securely hold heavy and oddly shaped objects, relies on simple inflation to wrap around objects and does not require sensing, planning, or feedback control. 

The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). 

“With this research, we wanted to reimagine how we interact with objects,” Kaitlyn Becker, former graduate student and postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and first author of the paper said in a statement. “By taking advantage of the natural compliance of soft robotics and enhancing it with a compliant structure, we designed a gripper that is greater than the sum of its parts and a grasping strategy that can adapt to a range of complex objects with minimal planning and perception.”