www.engineeringnews.co.nz 25 A master of engineering excellence and natural selection have combined to produce a bionic breakthrough. Lightweight robots with pneumatic drives working in collaboration with humans, and a gripper modelled on an octopus’s tentacles are new from the engineers from the Bionic Learning Network of Festo. While the BionicCobot is inspired by the natural movement of the human arm, the BionicMotionRobot is based on the elephant’s trunk and the octopus’s tentacles from the animal kingdom. A new bionic grasping device, the OctopusGripper, is likewise derived from the octopus. All three projects show what hazard-free, direct human-robot collaboration could look like in the future. The OctopusGripper is a bionic gripper based on the octopus’s tentacles and consists a soft silicone structure that can be pneumatically controlled. If compressed air is applied to it, the tentacle bends inwards and can wrap around the object being gripped in a form-fitting and gentle manner. Just as with its natural model, two rows of actively and passively controlled suction cups are arranged on the inside of the silicone tentacle. This enables the OctopusGripper to pick up and hold a large number of differently shaped objects. Thanks to its soft, inherently flexible structure, the OctopusGripper has great potential for use in collaborative working spaces in the future. For videos, photogallery and a full text story version see the digital edition of Engineering News.
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