North Carolina State University researchers have been developing the development of a robot gripper that offers remarkable flexibility. Researchers say the one hand gripper is a great tool for food processing, electronic manufacturing and pharmaceuticals, agriculture as well as deep-sea exploration.

The co-author of the paper about the concept, Yaoye Hong, said the single gripper was built using kirigami principles which is a Japanese method that is based on folding and cutting two-dimensional material to create 3D structures. Hong said that the users can make the grippers using biodegradable material, an option to situations where the grippers can only be used for a short duration, for example the handling of biomedical products or food items.

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A single gripper weighs less than half a gram, and has the ability to lift as high up to 6.4 kilograms. The other paper’s author, Jie Yin, explained that the single gripper’s weight-to-payload ratio, which is typically a measure of the strength of a robotic gripper, amounts to approximately 16,000. As per NC State, this breaks the previous record for payload-to-weight ratio which was 6,400.

Source: thomasnet.com