Author: Maria Temming / Source: Science News for Students
A new type of soft robot gets its power from the skin it’s in.
This robotic skin bends, stretches and contracts. That flexibility lets it wrap around inanimate objects.
Wrap it around the legs of a stuffed animal and presto! A flexible lightweight robot. Putting removable, reusable sheets of this “skin” on other objects could turn them into useful grippers or wearable devices. Researchers described their new invention online September 19 in Science Robotics.“It’s an interesting approach,” says Christopher Atkeson. He’s a roboticist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., who did not work on the project. Sometimes it might be simpler to use a soft ready-made robot for a specific purpose. Like squeezing through tight spaces, for example, or gently grabbing objects. The new robotic skins might come in handy for other things, such as search-and-rescue operations or space exploration. These are missions…
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