AI is becoming more sophisticated as the day goes by. Bipedal robots walk faster and are almost able to move like humans. Do you know what are the missing pieces for the machine to take over? There should be quite a few (things) – hopefully, and of them would be picking up things.
Human hands are good but researchers/roboticists over at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have another idea. Back in October 2022, the researchers/roboticists revealed they were working on a tentacle robot that could gently grasp fragile objects, even if they were of odd shapes.
Taking inspiration from marine creatures like jellyfish, Tentacle Robot uses thin tentacles known as filaments that inflate to entangle and achieve a secure hold on even fragile objects. It can do so without the need for complex controls and requires no sensing, planning, or feedback control.
The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The research project does not appear to have any updates. In any case, you read more about this intriguing development on the Harvard SEAS website and on PNAS (paper: Active entanglement enables stochastic, topological grasping).
Images: Harvard SEAS.
