Festo_TentacleGripper_en

The Bionic Learning Network New impetus through open innovation The aims of the Bionic Learning Network not only include learning from nature, however, but also identifying good ideas at an early stage and fostering them and implementing them jointly beyond company borders. The TentacleGripper is another outstanding example of the close collaboration by Festo with universities as part of the network. Interdisciplinary university project The silicone tentacle was developed in cooperation with the School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation at Beihang University (BUAA) in China. After a loose exchange at first about possible bionic technology platforms and soft robotics in general, the joint decision came about to implement the octopus tentacle as a pneumatic gripper. Following that, two students from the university started looking at how to technically derive the natural working principle with support from Festo. At the Hannover Messe in April 2016, the pro- ject managers then met in person and their work together was intensified. Online conferences and joint implementation The team then got in touch every month by video to share the latest development statuses and new ideas with each other. By integrating the suction cups, it was possible to considerably improve the gripping properties of the silicone tentacles in this phase of the project. The next milestone came during a two-day workshop organised by Festo on the subject of bionics in Beijing, where the project team met and developed the gripper further together on-site. On their return visit to the Festo headquarters, the two students were able to optimise their designs together with the Festo engineers and put them into practice with the help of the latest prototyping technology. This allowed both the robustness and the flexibility of the tentacle to be significantly increased and to take the concept forward to the functional gripper. The TentacleGripper is thus added to a series of grippers, which have already emerged from the interdisciplinary research work of the Bionic Learning Network. Widest range of grippers based on a natural archetype The developers were inspired by the animal world for the first time in 2009 when it came to the adaptive gripper fingers on the BionicTripod. Like a fish’s fin, the structure with Fin Ray Effect ® does not give way under lateral pressure, but instead bends around the pressure point. The fingers therefore close softly around the items being gripped, which enables fragile and irregularly shaped objects to be safely gripped. In the meantime, Festo has developed the gripper finger into a serial product under the name DHAS. Another gripper project from the Bionic Learning Network is the NanoForceGripper from 2012, whose gripping area imitates a gecko’s foot. It is used to grip especially sensitive objects with smooth surfaces without leaving any residue and almost energy- free. With the PowerGripper, Festo implemented the complex kinematics of a bird’s beak in the same year. And with the ExoHand, the devel- opers presented an exoskeleton that can be put on like a glove: it is used to actively move fingers, boost the power in the fingers and detect movements of the hand and transfer them in real time to robot hands. By means of force feedback, the person feels what the robot is gripping. In 2013, Festo used the LearningGripper to develop a research platform, which is able to learn and can adopt complex actions by itself. One year later, the opposable thumb of the human hand served as an inspiration for the MultiChoiceGripper: like its natural counterpart, the gripper is able to change its fingers over so that it can grip either in a parallel or centric direction, without requiring any conversion. The operating principle of the FlexShapeGripper from 2015 is derived from a chameleon’s tongue. With its elastic cap made of silicone, it can pick up several objects with the widest range of shapes in one procedure and set them back down together. 02: Adaptive gripper DHAS: From the research project to the production stage 01: TentacleGripper 2017: Gripping like an octopus tentacle 05: MultiChoiceGripper 2014: Variable gripping of different shapes 04: LearningGripper 2013: Gripping and learning – working together 06: FlexShapeGripper 2015: Form fit of the chameleon’s tongue 03: ExoHand 2012: Power boost for human-technical cooperation Do you want to find out more about the bionic gripper from Festo? Visit www.festo.com/bionics on your smartphone, tablet or PC and click through the projects. 01 06 02 03 04 05 6 Festo AG & Co. KG 7 TentacleGripper: Gripping modelled on an octopus tentacle