{"id":3289,"date":"2021-11-25T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-25T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=3289"},"modified":"2021-11-11T05:59:36","modified_gmt":"2021-11-11T05:59:36","slug":"rolling-fingers-robot-can-rotate-what-its-holding-without-letting-it-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/rolling-fingers-robot-can-rotate-what-its-holding-without-letting-it-go\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cRolling Fingers\u201d Robot Can Rotate What It\u2019s Holding Without Letting It Go"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It may not look like it, but robots are everywhere. It just so happens that some of the robots that are already in use are mostly confined to factories and other production facilities, tasked with repeating the same action with a stable efficiency and a predictable result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These robots have since taken over the jobs that humans used to have, which have resulted in significant increases to production rates without putting the human that would have supplanted it at risk of exposure to dangerous agents like chemicals and work hazards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, robots are also often not the humanoid, walking hunks of metal that we often see referenced in popular culture, like in movies or TV shows. In fact, most robots aren\u2019t even humanoid at all\u2014after all, they\u2019re only really in the places where they are to do one or more jobs with a predictable and controllable result. Thus, most industrial robots skip the humanoid look and go for something a bit more functional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This particular industrial robot from Germany-based RobotLab can draw calligraphic lines with high precision. However, it didn\u2019t need to appear like a human with a hand that is holding a pen; the designers simply opted for a pen with a motorized mount and an ink container. (Schaefer, 2008) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, though, it doesn\u2019t hurt to take design cues from things in nature every now and then\u2014especially if they bring about a specific purpose in mind. This, at least, seems to be the case with a new robotic hand designed as a collaboration between scientists from the University of Malaga (UM)  and the University College London (UCL).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The robotic hand, coined the \u201cRolling Fingers\u201d robot, doesn\u2019t exactly hide its unique function; it\u2019s a hand-shaped robot whose finger \u201cparts\u201d can roll along the axis of the finger, granting reorientation via rotation to whatever it is holding at that moment without having to let go first and reorient the hand. Their new research was published in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The \u201cRolling Fingers\u201d robot is a collaboration between the University of Malaga and the University College London. Its three-fingered layout allows the research team to \u201c[move] objects in a controlled way using a single grasp.\u201d (University of Malaga, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The project was led by University of Malaga tele-robotics professor Jes\u00fas M. G\u00f3mez, and was configured to be a robot hand with three \u201cfingers\u201d; each of the fingers is wrapped with rotating \u201cskin\u201d rings that are capable of rotating around the axis of the finger at varying speeds. The \u201cskin\u201d in Rolling Fingers is made of rubber, which gives it excellent grip on any objects it can hold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given the several points of articulation within each finger, G\u00f3mez and team enabled the robot to grasp any object by contorting its fingers to the rough shape of the object being held, which also allows Rolling Fingers to rotate the object without letting it go. This, the authors say, reduces the time required to do complicated functions that require the repositioning of tools being held by robots like Rolling Fingers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Said G\u00f3mez in a University of Malaga press release via AlphaGalileo: \u201cBefore, when a mobile robot had to perform any task, whether industrial or clinical, it needed two hands.\u201d G\u00f3mez referred to the case of a robotic assistant in a hospital that checks patients\u2019 heart rates, one hand is needed for the actual probe to measure heart rate, while another is required to roll up a patient\u2019s sleeves prior to examination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is the first prototype of highly articulated adaptive fingers with a skin that is able to rotate around its axis at different speeds, and at the same time the finger can perform tendon-driven adaptive grasping actions,\u201d according to the same University of Malaga press release. \u201cIts capability to safely manipulate non-rigid objects in-hand\u2014that is, without dropping the object\u2014adds great potential to any robotic arm and simplifies the process considerably.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G\u00f3mez and team are already hard at work in creating a robot with four fingers instead of just three, which they expect to exercise an even greater freedom of movement; this may increase the possibilities in which Rolling Fingers-like robots can aid in industrial or medical applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following this, they also plan to deploy a demonstration for an industrial setup\u2014and, hopefully afterwards, for human-robot interactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(For more tech news, read further about the computers that brought humanity to the Moon and back<\/a>. After that, check out how machine learning found a \u201cghost\u201d lineage hidden within the human genome<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n