Meet the Robotic Gripper Inspired by Measuring Tape

Watch this video to learn more about a measuring-tape-inspired gripper. It has two “fingers,” each made of two rolls of measuring tape bound together. Low-cost and safe around humans, the grippers could be a particularly good fit for agriculture applications; their extremities are soft enough to grab fragile fruits and vegetables.

”We like to look for non-traditional, non-intuitive robot mechanisms. The tape measure is such a wonderful structure because of its combined softness and stiffness together,” said Nick Gravish , the paper’s senior author and a faculty member in the UC San Diego Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.