This easy-to-make sponge-jamming machine will help stiff robots deal with delicate gadgets rigorously by mimicking the nuanced contact, or variable stiffness, of a human.

Robots can skip, leap and do somersaults, however they’re too inflexible to carry an egg simply. Variable-stiffness units are potential options for contact compliance on onerous robots to cut back injury, or for bettering the load capability of soppy robots.

This examine, printed on the IEEE Worldwide Convention on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2023, reveals that variable stiffness could be achieved by a silicone sponge.

Lead creator Tianqi Yue from Bristol’s Division of Engineering Arithmetic defined: “Stiffness, also called softness, is necessary involved situations.

“Robotic arms are too inflexible so they can not make such a mushy human-like grasp on delicate objects, for instance, an egg.

“What makes people totally different from robotic arms is that now we have mushy tissues enclosing inflexible bones, which act as a pure mitigating mechanism.

“On this paper, we managed to develop a mushy machine with variable stiffness, to be mounted on the top robotic arm for making the robot-object contact secure.”

Silicone sponge is an inexpensive and easy-to-fabricate materials. It’s a porous elastomer similar to the cleansing sponge utilized in on a regular basis duties.

By squeezing the sponge, the sponge stiffens which is why it may be remodeled right into a variable-stiffness machine.

This machine could possibly be utilized in industrial robots in situations together with gripping jellies, eggs and different fragile substances. It may also be utilized in service robots to make human-robot interplay safer.

Mr Yue added: “We managed to make use of a sponge to make an inexpensive and nimble however efficient machine that may assist robots obtain mushy contact with objects. The good potential comes from its low price and light-weight weight.

“We consider this silicone-sponge based mostly variable-stiffness machine will present a novel answer in business and healthcare, for instance, tunable-stiffness requirement on robotic sprucing and ultrasound imaging.”

The group will now have a look at making the machine obtain variable stiffness in a number of instructions, together with rotation.