Sometimes concepts from the movie screen come to life. The Thing — the arm that runs on its own in the Adams family movies was realized as a robot arm.
This way, the device is able to grab objects that are out of direct reach. it was developed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
Despite their precision, speed, and strength, robotic arms are usually rigidly fixed, which limits their reach. The EPFL team sought to create a hand that could not only grasp objects securely, but also release to relieve mobility restrictions when needed. The Handcrawler project was recently presented at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation.
From an engineering perspective, grasping and crawling have a lot in common. Both processes require processes that bend and curve. In the Handcrawler, the fingers play the role of legs when necessary. In order for the hand to move independently and grasp something at the same time, the fingers curve in both directions from «palm». The robotic arm uses machine learning to operate:
«The deep learning model should significantly improve the methods of deft manipulation for multi-finger grasping. However, understanding contact information in a cluttered environment requires further study», — the project team notes.
The video shared by the researchers shows the Handcrawler in action. After separation, the «hand comes to life as the» hand, and demonstrates some creepy movements. Usually, the manipulator uses all five fingers and toes to move, but two of them are used to grab a small object.
«Although you see it in scary movies, I think we are the first to introduce this idea in robotics,» says researcher Xiao Gao.
In the video, the robot was manually controlled, but the researchers claim that they already have an autonomous version. It can perform a sequence of complete disconnection, crawling, grabbing, and reattachment on its own.
Sources: TechSpot, TechCrunch