It is a sport a whole lot of us performed as kids — and perhaps even later in life: unspooling measuring tape to see how far it could lengthen earlier than bending. However to engineers on the College of California San Diego, this sport was an inspiration, suggesting that measuring tape may turn into an awesome materials for a robotic gripper.
The grippers can be a very good match for agriculture functions, as their extremities are smooth sufficient to seize fragile vegetables and fruit, researchers wrote. The gadgets are additionally low-cost and secure round people.
The workforce revealed 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 best robotic gripper continues to be a piece in progress. Present grippers that may increase are cumbersome as a result of they want extra mechanisms to get gripping appendages to increase. The gripper the UC San Diego workforce developed solves this downside.
That is as a result of the tape is each strong and versatile; could be saved in a small container when retracted; and may attain far when prolonged. After a sequence of trial-and-error experiments, the engineers decided that the perfect configuration for a gripper is definitely two of the tapes sure along with adhesive.
“We prefer to search for non-traditional, non-intuitive robotic mechanisms. The tape measure is such a beautiful construction due to its mixed softness and stiffness collectively,” stated Nick Gravish, the paper’s senior writer and a college member within the UC San Diego Division of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
The gripper has two “fingers,” made from two spools-each made from two rolls of measuring tape sure collectively. Every spool is rolled up, in a compact configuration, with solely a small half extending out in a triangle form to type 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 are farther away. They will additionally retract to deliver 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 analyze smooth supplies that might bend whereas holding their form. Measuring tape is springy — you’ll be able to bend it any approach you need and it goes again to its authentic state. It is also made from metal, which is each strong and sturdy, in addition to skinny sufficient that it will not injury objects on contact. In reality, it is as smooth because the silicone utilized in most smooth 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 may also transfer to rotate objects or act as a conveyor belt. The gripper can maintain a variety of objects with totally different shapes and stiffness, from a rubber ball or a single tomato to a complete 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 could additionally navigate the obstacles the gripper would possibly encounter on the best way to choosing up an object.
Experiments confirmed that the gripper may simply raise 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.
