A tentacle robot can gently grasp fragile objects by entangling and ensnaring them – just as a jellyfish would.
Drawing inspiration from nature or, more specifically, from a jellyfish collecting stunned prey, a Harvard team of engineers developed a robotic gripper equipped with thin, soft tentacles to handle irregularly shaped or fragile objects.
A collection of pneumatic rubber tentacles – or filaments – are weak individually, but together they can grasp and securely hold heavy or oddly shaped items. They wrap around the objects by way of simple inflation without sensing, planning, or feedback control.
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