A new robotic gripper made of measuring tape is sizing up fruit and veggie picking

It is a sport a whole lot of us performed as kids—and perhaps even later in life: unspooling measuring tape to see how far it could lengthen earlier than bending. However to engineers on the University of California San Diego, this sport was an inspiration, suggesting that measuring tape may turn out to be an awesome materials for a robotic gripper.

The grippers can be a very good match for agricultural functions, as their extremities are tender sufficient to seize fragile fruit and veggies, the researchers wrote. The gadgets are additionally low-cost and secure round people.

The crew published their course of and design within the journal Science Advances. They name their robotic GRIP-tape, with GRIP serving as an acronym for Greedy and Rolling In-Airplane.

Constructing the best robotic gripper remains to be a piece in progress. Current grippers that may broaden are cumbersome as a result of they want extra mechanisms to get gripping appendages to broaden. The gripper the UC San Diego crew developed solves this drawback.

That is as a result of the tape is each strong and versatile; could be saved in a small container when retracted; and might attain far when prolonged. After a collection of trial-and-error experiments, the engineers decided that the perfect configuration for a gripper is definitely two of the tapes sure along with adhesive.

“We like to look for non-traditional, non-intuitive robot mechanisms. The tape measure is such a wonderful structure because of its combined softness and stiffness together,” mentioned Nick Gravish, the paper’s senior writer and a college member within the UC San Diego Division of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

The gripper has two “fingers,” manufactured from two spools–every manufactured from two rolls of measuring tape sure collectively. Every spool is rolled up in a compact configuration, with solely a small half extending out in a triangle form to type a finger. These triangle sections are managed by 4 motors that every management the finger’s movement.

Every finger can transfer independently. The triangle sections can lengthen to achieve objects which are farther away. They’ll additionally retract to deliver objects nearer to the robotic arm the gripper is mounted on.

The researchers had already labored with measuring tape as a part of a grant from the Nationwide Science Basis to research soft materials that might bend whereas holding their form.

Measuring tape is springy—you may bend it any approach you need and it goes again to its unique state. It is also manufactured from metal, which is each strong and sturdy, in addition to skinny sufficient that it will not injury objects on contact. In truth, it is as tender because the silicon utilized in most tender robots.

The gripper is exclusive as a result of it makes use of the entire size of the tape as a gripping floor. The tape also can transfer to rotate objects or act as a conveyor belt. The gripper can maintain a variety of objects with completely different shapes and stiffness, from a rubber ball or a single tomato to an entire tomato vine or a lemon. As a result of the tape itself can act as a conveyor belt, the gripper can then deposit the objects it grasps into containers.

As a result of the tape is versatile, it will probably additionally navigate the obstacles the gripper may encounter on the way in which to choosing up an object.

Experiments confirmed that the gripper may simply raise giant fruits like recent lemons.

Subsequent variations of the gripper may enhance on the unique by including superior sensors and AI-driven information evaluation in order that the gripper can function autonomously.