Thursday, September 13, 2012

Harvard University developed a curious robot tentacle


The robot is present in many areas of our daily lives and, little by little, we have seen has been introduced in the industrial sector (large production lines with mechanical arms, for example, can be assembled much of a car), in medicine (such as surgical instruments) or assistant people suffering from any kind of disease. One of the best known examples of robotics is that of robot arms , which have been materialized in more than one controller in production lines, medical or orthopedic prostheses, an application from Harvard University are proposing to a rather unique way .

Through a project for DARPA , which is quite common when it comes to robotics, a research team from the Department of Energy at Harvard University has long been working on a new type of robot arm not look anything like what we have seen previously. The arm, really, is a tentacle made ​​of plastic and has the ability to adapt its shape to grab any object (in the same way that a constrictor snake twisting grab an animal body).
The arm is controlled by several air flows at different pressures, by its variation, serve to control the shape and thus will control the grip pressure on an object. Stated another way, rather than follow the conventional approach of a robot arm with fingers or tweezers to grip objects, the feeler is capable of coiling and adapted to grip anything adapting the pressure and the clamping force to the object to be sustain.
The result, in view of the photographs that have been published, is quite surprising since September controlling air tubes that circulate through the tentacle he is able to take the most diverse forms (in the three directions of space) and can holding a horseshoe-shaped piece (curling around it) or put a flower without breaking.
A practical application with great potential due to its adaptability and flexibility.

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