Here is a robotic gripper with soft sensitive fingers that can handle cables with dexterity. Developed by researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), this system relies on high-resolution tactile sensors to manipulate moving cables.
The researchers built a two-fingered gripper with vision-based “GelSight” sensors built from soft rubber with embedded cameras. As they explain:
When mounted on the arm, the gripper could reliably follow a USB cable starting from a random grasp position. Then, in combination with a second gripper, the robot can move the cable “hand over hand” (as a human would) in order to find the end of the cable. It could also adapt to cables of different materials and thicknesses.
[HT]