Multi-Segment Soft Robotic Finger Design For Precise Grasping

Current soft robotic hands can be very gentle, but they often have trouble performing high-precision grasps. Soft fingers often lack the necessary precision due to the commonly-used “single-segment” finger design. Researchers from the Harvard Microrobotics Lab found that soft fingers should be designed with at least two independently-actuated serial segments. In two demonstrations, they show that soft fingers with two independent segments enable different grasps based on the size and position of the target object. This two-segment finger design allows robots to choose between strength and precision on-the-fly. The research was published in the International Journal of Robotics Research .