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so every day we ask robots to do amazing
things like pick up this Apple for
example and you can see this robot does
this quite easily but the fact of the
matter is while robots are very good and
very efficient for many tasks we still
struggle getting robots to handle soft
delicate items this has been a major
focus of research for many many years
and the result has really been countless
damaged items torn fabric and crushed
Tomatoes so why have we struggled with
this have we been using the wrong
inspiration think about the human hand
one of the most complex structures in
the world 29 individual bones 34 muscles
48 identifiable nerve paths all
connected to the most complex computer
in the world the human brain we've spent
decades trying to recreate a robotic
version of the hand and we continue to
be frustrated but is there better
inspiration should we be looking
elsewhere in nature are there things
that can grasp objects do complex
manipulations similar to the human hand
but maybe are less complex to recreate
let's think about the octopus the
octopus is very good at manipulating
items an octopus tentacle can easily
wrap around an item conformed to it and
grasp it the octopus can do some of the
most compartment if manipulations we've
seen in in the world so why don't use
the octopus as the inspiration and see
if we can solve this problem that's
exactly what a group of researchers at
Harvard University did in 2009 they set
out to create a robotic version of the
octopus but instead of employing the
traditional toolkit of motors and
sensors and rigid linkages they look to
material science and what they found is
by creating layers composite material
structures using rubber and paper and
then bedding microfluidic channels into
these structures they could get these
devices to act like an octopus tentacle
think about it robotic programming
through origami once you build the
composite you embed the patterns you
apply pneumatic pressure now you have
something that acts like a octopus
tentacle deforms conforms and safely
grasp an object and that's exactly what
they've done so let's take a look at how
it actually works so there's some
difficult objects out there if you think
about this bath sponge it's a very
simple object for a human being to pick
up but it's soft it's light its fluffy
its unstructured a real challenge for a
robot so you can see we'll set it down
and let the octopus tentacles do the
work so continuing at the bath theme a
child's toy a bath doc once again a very
simple object for a human hand to
manipulate but until recently impossible
for a robot to handle so let's see how
our robot does with this once again
simple object for humans an easy object
for an octopus now we can enable this a
manipulation very easily in the last
item something is delicate as an English
breakfast scone that I picked up this
morning we can set this down and once
again through material science we're
able to pick it up and manipulate it
without damage and yes indeed this is
actually a crumbly scone that I can pull
apart so what's important here is how
does this work that's probably the
question you're asking right now is how
does this work in a normal robotic
situation we'd be stopping the robot
between every item in reprogramming we'd
have to know the mass of the object the
exact size of the object the center of
gravity object and program the robot to
apply just the right amount of force you
can clearly see on stage there's no
cameras here
there's no sensors at work there's no
artificial intelligent lurking behind
the robot knowing how to pick these
items the robot has no idea which items
it's picking the only thing at play here
is material science so why is this
important is we have industries that
need
that need robotic hands but we have not
been able to automate to date
so think about agriculture food and
beverage manufacturing some of the tasks
in advanced manufacturing with advanced
materials are even handling retail
e-commerce or grocery logistics these
are all tasks that have been closed to
automation because this grasping problem
but now we can enable that so let's
think about the future where do we want
robots we want robots to help us in the
home we want robots to help us in the
office but think about the multitude of
items that we interact with in our day
to day whether it's at the office at
home or walking through the supermarket
ow think about something as simple as
the chickens egg this is something that
if we want the robot to cook his
breakfast it's going to have to be able
to manipulate a chicken's egg and do it
in a way that we make sure that it gets
to the right place and it's safe Dan
sound is it's done so I know the
question you're asking is it just a
hard-boiled egg you can see it's clearly
a raw egg so now we can take robots
where we need them into automation into
the home into these areas but can they
do these really difficult tasks could
one day robots pick tomatoes from the
vine for us
as you can see the answer is plainly yes
thank you
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