Soft robotics

“Soft” robots are a new word in robotics. They are made of silicone and other malleable materials, which makes them stand out from the metal robots. Thanks to this change, it was possible to create devices that can perform human work that is not available to obsolete metal machines and this leads to new possibilities that can be further scaled.

Experts believe that “soft” robotics will become a popular direction. For example, it will be in demand in agriculture. The fact is that most automated harvesting solutions only work with large and hard crops. With regard to the collection of small crops, manual labor is still more often used. Yes, there are several mechanisms, but they can damage plants during the harvesting process.

Therefore, the goal of the engineers was to create such mechanisms that could be used for the automated collection of berries and other small crops. For such purposes, the optimal solution was the use of soft robotics. A tubular structure was invented that would move up to the bush and start picking berries from it. The process of separating the berries turned out to be quite complicated. The mechanism does not grab the fruits directly, but uses special soft robotic bags that gently press on the back of the berry, separating it from the stem. All movements in this method resemble the movements of a person when picking berries.

All innovations related to the creation of “soft” robots are directly related to developments in the field of artificial intelligence training. Such machines are being created that can determine the emotions of the speaker by the intonation of speech. In addition, research is currently underway, the goal of which is for the robot to receive modern computer vision, which makes it possible to determine emotions from facial expressions.

The main differences between soft robots and conventional ones

The main difference is that metal robots are more limited. Initially, they were made for specific purposes, such as working on an assembly line. But in terms of versatility, they are definitely inferior to soft machines.

Soft robots are made of malleable materials, so their shape can be very diverse. Consequently, the number of available functions increases. Of course, while soft robots are under development, although the very first of them appeared back in 2011. After that, more and more similar machines began to appear, but there is no talk of any commercial release yet. It may take several more years before this technology becomes in demand in all areas of human activity.

But we can definitely say that soft robots are an innovative development in the field of robotics. Of course, they have commercial potential and there is hope for their further use in industry, medicine, and science. Already now there are interesting prototypes. For example, soft robots will make it possible to create ideal prostheses for humans that provide a soft grip on objects. In addition, special machines are being developed for operation in open space conditions. Well, as mentioned above, in agriculture, soft robots will become indispensable workers.