It is a sport a number of us performed as kids — and perhaps even later in life: unspooling measuring tape to see how far it will prolong earlier than bending. However to engineers on the College of California San Diego, this sport was an inspiration, suggesting that measuring tape may turn out to be a fantastic materials for a robotic gripper.
The grippers can be a very good match for agriculture functions, as their extremities are mushy sufficient to seize fragile fruit and veggies, researchers wrote. The gadgets are additionally low-cost and secure round people.
The workforce printed their course of and design within the journal Science Advances on April 9, 2025. They name their robotic GRIP-tape, with GRIP serving as an acronym for Greedy and Rolling In-Aircraft.
Constructing the perfect robotic gripper continues to be a piece in progress. Current grippers that may develop are cumbersome as a result of they want further mechanisms to get gripping appendages to develop. The gripper the UC San Diego workforce developed solves this drawback.
That is as a result of the tape is each sturdy and versatile; will be saved in a small container when retracted; and might attain far when prolonged. After a collection of trial-and-error experiments, the engineers decided that the perfect configuration for a gripper is definitely two of the tapes certain along with adhesive.
“We prefer to search for non-traditional, non-intuitive robotic mechanisms. The tape measure is such an exquisite construction due to its mixed softness and stiffness collectively,” mentioned Nick Gravish, the paper’s senior writer and a school member within the UC San Diego Division of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
The gripper has two “fingers,” product of two spools-each product of two rolls of measuring tape certain collectively. Every spool is rolled up, in a compact configuration, with solely a small half extending out in a triangle form to kind a finger. These triangle sections are managed by 4 motors every that management the finger’s movement. Every finger can transfer independently. The triangle sections can lengthen to succeed in objects which might be farther away. They will additionally retract to convey objects nearer to the robotic arm the gripper is mounted on.
The researchers had already labored with measuring tape as a part of a grant from the Nationwide Science Basis to research mushy supplies that would bend whereas holding their form. Measuring tape is springy — you may bend it any means you need and it goes again to its authentic state. It is also product of metal, which is each sturdy and sturdy, in addition to skinny sufficient that it will not injury objects on contact. The truth is, it is as mushy because the silicone utilized in most mushy robots.
The gripper is exclusive as a result of it makes use of the entire size of the tape as a gripping floor. The tape can even transfer to rotate objects or act as a conveyor belt. The gripper can maintain a variety of objects with completely different shapes and stiffness, from a rubber ball or a single tomato to an entire tomato vine or a lemon. As a result of the tape itself can act as a conveyor belt, the gripper can then deposit the objects it grasps into containers.
As a result of the tape is versatile, it may additionally navigate the obstacles the gripper may encounter on the best way to selecting up an object.
Experiments confirmed that the gripper may simply carry massive fruits like recent lemons.
Subsequent variations of the gripper may enhance on the unique by including superior sensors and AI-driven knowledge evaluation in order that the gripper can function autonomously.
The work was partially funded by the Nationwide Science Basis.