Here is a 3D printed soft robotic hand that uses pneumatic RAM for movement control. Engineers at UC Riverside are behind this robot. They made a pneumatic random-access memory using microfluidic valves. As they explain:
The microfluidic valves were originally designed to control the flow of liquids on microfluidic chips, but they can also control the flow of air. The valves remain sealed against a pressure differential even when disconnected from an air supply line, creating trapped pressure differentials that function as memories and maintain the states of a robot’s actuators. Dense arrays of these valves can perform advanced operations and reduce the expensive, bulky, and power-consuming electronic hardware typically used to control pneumatic robots.
As the above GIF shows, this approach can be used to build a robotic hand that can play the piano.
[HT]
