This Low-Cost Woven-Plastic Robotic Gripper Can Lift Nearly 800 Times Its Own Weight

Researchers from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and Seoul National University, have developed a soft robotic gripper which uses just 130g (around 4.6oz) of cheap plastic material to lift payloads up to 100kg (over 220lbs.)

"The woven structure gripper developed by KIST and KAIST has the strengths of a soft robot but can grasp heavy objects at the level of a rigid gripper," claims Kahye Song, PhD, of the team's work. "It can be manufactured in a variety of sizes, from coins to cars, and can grip objects of various shapes and weights, from thin cards to flowers, so it is expected to be used in fields such as industry, logistics, and housework that require soft grippers."

The secret to the gripper's impressive capabilities lies in its design: rather than using pinching fingers or inflating tubes, it's made of a woven structure — like a fabric — using PET plastic. As the material is tightened by a motor, it conforms to a target object and grips it tightly enough to lift nearly 800 times its own weight, and five times more than comparable traditional grippers of the same weight. At the same time, though, the gripper can be used carefully to grasp a playing card or a flower without damaging it.

"The weaving structure is known for its strong resilience to shape deformation (induced by, e.g., the payload on it) due to the cooperative efforts to sustain its shape by the constituent strips," the researchers explain. "This strong geometric resilience of the weaving structure employed in our gripper allows the individual strips to handle heavy payloads by distributing and supporting the weight. Additionally, the reversible structure formation speed of the gripper is directly influenced by the rotational speed of an electrical motor, facilitating rapid operation depending on the motor performance."

The researchers say the woven-plastic gripper is both cheaper and easier to make than rival designs, with a manufacturing process which can be completed in under 10 minutes. Where required, the plastic can also be switched out for other materials — including rubber and other elastic compounds — to increase the grip strength further or make it more capable of withstanding extreme environments.

The team's work has been published in the journal Nature Communications under open-access terms.