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Soft robotics and new materials will have the biggest impact on industry, says Protolabs report

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A new Protolabs report reveals that almost one third (32 percent) of robotics industry experts believe that soft robotics and new materials will have the biggest impact on how robotics manufacturing will develop in the next five years.

Meanwhile, more than one quarter (29 percent) see the material supply chain as the most serious barrier to progress.

Sustainability and speed were highlighted as important factors for innovation and product development in fresh applications. [Read more…] about Soft robotics and new materials will have the biggest impact on industry, says Protolabs report

National Science Foundation awards Michael Bartlett $590,600 to study soft composite manufacturing

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Michael Bartlett, an assistant professor in Virginia Tech’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been granted a $590,600 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award to research and understand new strategies for manufacturing liquid metal-based soft composites.

These functional composites are deformable robust materials that could be used to make robots and electronics that are soft, stretchable, and compatible for skin-like wearable devices.

The CAREER award is the foundation’s most prestigious award for early career faculty, encouraging them to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their organizations. [Read more…] about National Science Foundation awards Michael Bartlett $590,600 to study soft composite manufacturing

Soft Robotics using Nvidia simulation technology to develop its gripping system

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Soft Robotics has applied Nvidia Isaac Sim’s synthetic data to food processing automation in efforts to improve safety and increase production.

Developers have been striving to close the gap on robotic gripping for the past several years, pursuing applications for multibillion-dollar industries. Securely gripping and transferring fast-moving items on conveyor belts holds vast promise for businesses.

Soft Robotics, a Bedford, Massachusetts startup, is harnessing Nvidia Isaac Sim to help close the sim to real gap for a handful of robotic gripping applications. One area is perfecting gripping for pick and placement of foods for packaging. [Read more…] about Soft Robotics using Nvidia simulation technology to develop its gripping system

Ritsumeikan University develops ‘soft microfingers’ for robots

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Ritsumeikan University researchers develop a soft robotic microfinger that enables interaction with insects through tactile sensing

Human-robot interactions not only allow robots to interact with humans but also with the environment. Microrobots, for instance, can interact with insects and measure the force exerted by them during flight or walking.

However, this interaction is not direct, with the microrobots measuring insect behavior primarily. Now, researchers from Japan have developed a soft micro-robotic finger that allows humans to directly interact with insects. This could enable human-environment interaction at previously inaccessible scales.

Humans have always been fascinated by scales different than theirs, from giant objects such as stars, planets and galaxies, to the world of the tiny: insects, bacteria, viruses and other microscopic objects. While the microscope allows us to view and observe the microscopic world, it is still difficult to interact with it directly. [Read more…] about Ritsumeikan University develops ‘soft microfingers’ for robots

Soft assistive robotic wearables get a boost from rapid design tool

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Scientists created a new design and fabrication tool for soft pneumatic actuators with integrated sensing, which can power personalized healthcare, smart homes, and gaming.

Soft, pneumatic actuators might not be a phrase that comes up in daily conversations, but more likely than not you might have benefited from their utility. The devices use compressed air to power motion, and with sensing capabilities, they’ve proven to be a critical backbone in a variety of applications such as assistive wearables, robotics, and rehabilitative technologies.

But there’s a bit of a bottleneck in creating the little dynamic devices that have advantages like high response rates and power to input ratios. They require a manual design and fabrication pipeline, which translates to a lot of trial and error cycles to actually test and see whether the designs will work. [Read more…] about Soft assistive robotic wearables get a boost from rapid design tool

New sensor that mimics automatic human reaction to heat could pave the way for ‘soft robots of the future’

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A new robotic sensor that mimics the automatic human reaction to heat is being hailed as a world first.

The device has been built by a team of experts from Liverpool Hope University, who say it’s the first sensor that can trigger this “sensory impulse” that the robotics community has yet seen.

The findings have been published in IEEE Xplore last December 15, 2021 as an early-access article and published this month in the IEEE Sensors Journal. [Read more…] about New sensor that mimics automatic human reaction to heat could pave the way for ‘soft robots of the future’

New soft robot morphs from a ground to air vehicle using liquid metal

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Imagine a small autonomous vehicle that could drive over land, stop, and flatten itself into a quadcopter. The rotors start spinning, and the vehicle flies away.

Looking at it more closely, what do you think you would see? What mechanisms have caused it to morph from a land vehicle into a flying quadcopter? You might imagine gears and belts, perhaps a series of tiny servo motors that pulled all its pieces into place.

If this mechanism was designed by a team at Virginia Tech led by Michael Bartlett, assistant professor in mechanical engineering, you would see a new approach for shape changing at the material level. [Read more…] about New soft robot morphs from a ground to air vehicle using liquid metal

Robot performs laparoscopic surgery without guiding hand of a human

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By Catherine Graham, Johns Hopkins University

In four experiments on pig tissues, the robot excelled at suturing two ends of intestine – one of the most intricate and delicate tasks in abdominal surgery

A robot has performed laparoscopic surgery – also known as keyhole surgery or minimally invasive surgery – on the soft tissue of a pig without the guiding hand of a human.

The people responsible say this is “a significant step toward fully automated surgery on humans”.

Designed by a team of Johns Hopkins University researchers, the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot, or STAR, is described today in Science Robotics.

Senior author Axel Krieger, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins’ Whiting School of Engineering, says: “Our findings show that we can automate one of the most intricate and delicate tasks in surgery: the reconnection of two ends of an intestine. [Read more…] about Robot performs laparoscopic surgery without guiding hand of a human

A system for designing and training intelligent soft robots

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‘Evolution Gym’ is a large-scale benchmark for co-optimizing the design and control of soft robots that takes inspiration from nature and evolutionary processes

Let’s say you wanted to build the world’s best stair-climbing robot. You’d need to optimize for both the brain and the body, perhaps by giving the bot some high-tech legs and feet, coupled with a powerful algorithm to help enable the climb.

Although design of the physical body and its brain, the “control”, are key ingredients to letting the robot move, existing benchmark environments favor only the latter. Co-optimizing for both elements is hard – it takes a lot of time to train various robot simulations to do different things, even without the design element.

Scientists from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), aimed to fill the gap by designing “Evolution Gym”, a large-scale testing system for co-optimizing the design and control of soft robots, taking inspiration from nature and evolutionary processes. [Read more…] about A system for designing and training intelligent soft robots

MIT unveils robot that can brush your hair

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MIT has unveiled a robot that can brush your hair for you as you can’t be bothered because this is the 10,000th lockdown and no one has seen you for decades and your hair hasn’t even seen the light of day for at least a year. (See video below.)

MIT says the robotic arm is equipped with a hairbrush helps with brushing tasks and could be “an asset in assistive care settings”.

With rapidly growing demands on health care systems, nurses typically spend 18 to 40 percent of their time performing direct patient care tasks, oftentimes for many patients and with little time to spare. Personal care robots that brush your hair could provide substantial help and relief. [Read more…] about MIT unveils robot that can brush your hair