Vine-inspired robot fingers can reach out and grab someone | MIT Technology Review

In the horticultural world, some vines are especially grabby. As they grow, the woody tendrils can wrap around obstacles with enough force to pull down fences and trees. Inspired by vines’ twisty tenacity, engineers at MIT and Stanford University have developed a robotic gripper that can snake around and lift a variety of objects and even people, offering a gentler approach than conventional gripper designs.  The new bot consists of a pressurized box from which long, vine-like tubes inflate and grow. As they extend, the vines twist and coil around the object before continuing back toward the box, where their tips are automatically clamped in place and they are mechanically wound back up to gently lift the object in a sling-like grasp. The researchers envision applications from agricultural harvesting to loading and unloading heavy cargo. In the near term, they are exploring uses in eldercare, such as helping to safely lift a person out of bed. Often in nursing and rehabilitation settings, this transfer process is done with a patient lift, which requires a caretaker to maneuver the person onto a hammock-like sheet that can be hooked to the device and hoisted up. This manual step is unnecessary with the robotic system.  “Transferring a person out of bed is one of the most physically strenuous tasks that a caregiver carries out,” says Kentaro Barhydt, a PhD candidate in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and one of the lead authors of a paper on the work. “This kind o...