On Valentine's Day, a staff member at SoftRobotics, a software robotics company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, placed a pair of heart-shaped marshmallows from the Peeps brand on a conveyor belt. Next, the robot arm clips them one by one and gently places them in a nearby box. It seems that the whole process has no intention of celebrating a romantic holiday, but it is actually a memorable victory.

SoftRobotics' RL7 and other robots can reliably perform the physical work we do many times a day, and of course learn a lot. They can pick up soft objects, place them where they are needed, and eliminate the need to use computer vision systems or any pre-programmed programs to identify objects.

In addition to the pink Peeps marshmallow, SoftRobotics' lab is filled with grotesque objects - peanut bags, Phoebe Elf dolls, "Frozen" plastic toys. CarlVause, CEO of SoftRobotics, acknowledges that the lab has the potential to become a “one dollar shop” where every item is selected for its volatility. But he explained that all of these things fully reflect real-world products.

Founded in 2013, SoftRobotics now uses the company's robots to grab and pack anything from chocolate to injection molds to pizza dough. SoftRobotics' robots look different from human hands. They are made up of cartoon-style square rubber and bright blue fingers, and the fingers can bite the target violently, just like the octopus catches the prey.

The name SoftRobotics reminds us of the soft materials used to make robots and a sub-category of the entire robotics industry. Voss recalled that in 2011 he published a paper with George Whitesides, and since then he has had the idea of ​​creating SoftRobotics. Whiteside is now a member of the SoftRobotics board of directors.

In the paper, the Harvard professor described in detail a four-legged, X-shaped quadruped robot that looks as if it is to hold on to the face of an unsuspecting passenger in the Alien. They wrote in the paper: "We are very interested in a unique robot category, a software robot made of special materials that does not provide mechanical force through a hard torso. The goal of this work is to show A new type of robot that can be moved with simple design and control."

In order to design a software robot that can walk and drill into small gaps under the door, Whiteside seeks to get inspiration outside the human world. Like every previous robotics expert, Whiteside's team eventually found this inspiration in the ocean.

The final product launched by SoftRobotics has drawn a lot of attention on the Internet because it can swell to control a single limb and walk, while also having a weird face. In the same year, Whitesitz's team applied the design to their first flexible robot – the shape was like a starfish.

SoftRobotics' robots include traction lines and pipes for delivering compressed air, and Whitesitz's team says the robot can grab raw eggs without breaking them. The team also grabbed a living mouse with a robotic hand, demonstrating how to use the right polymer material and air pressure, and safely grabbing the object without causing any damage - this behavior requires the robot to It has an advanced computer vision and sensor system that is far superior to higher hardness robots.

Voss said: "We see that this breakthrough technology can achieve human-like dexterity with simple robotics. Traditional robots must know the exact position of the object when grabbing things. Also calculate its The path, which produces a lot of numerical operations, because the sensor is deployed on its finger, so it must be captured just right, and with so many steps involved, the solution becomes very slow and very lengthy."

By 2014, SoftRobotics created the first prototype. Later in 2015, SoftRobotics began to push robots to the commercial market and installed them at the end of third-party industrial robots at companies such as Abb. Since its launch, SoftRobotics robots have achieved the greatest success in the food transportation sector. In this area, products rarely adhere to strict conformance standards in size and shape. In addition, since the equipment in the food industry needs to be washed after one day of use, the robot has the opportunity to show its talents in this industry.

Voss said: "We thought at the time of its creation that we will focus on the development of the food industry within three years. The clean robot system can directly handle food, which has great demand in the food industry. So, we Today 80% of the business is related to food – from bread baking to food production.

SoftRobotics is not the first company to bring a company-named technology to the manufacturing and logistics industries. Founded in 2012, EmpireRobotics has launched Versaball, a robot that is based on the same principles and brings minimalism to the extreme. The Versaball consists of a balloon-like ball filled with grainy material like sand. Air can be pumped into the Versaball and drained to adjust the grip. Versaball is not made to process food because the food needs to be sorted and shipped to different packaging points in the factory, which is something Versaball's small metal parts can't do.

Despite the media's positive comments on Versaball, including late night drinking with Jimmy Fallon (BeerPong), EmpireRobotics is still failing. Balloon-shaped robots cannot withstand highly repetitive industrial uses. The company ended up in silence in 2016.

However, the SoftRobotics robot inspired by cephalopods seems to be favored thanks to its versatility without the need for any small parts, and the assembly process is simplified. According to Voss, depending on the type of product the robot is handling in a particular environment, the installer simply selects the type of rubber finger to install and then adjusts the air pressure to drive those robots. In some cases, robots are also part of the plug-and-play product.

SoftRobotics has successfully overcome an obstacle to getting a breakthrough technology out of the lab and commercializing it in an industrial environment.

Voss explained: "One of the biggest challenges we face is that if you are an academic job, you only need to design something that only runs a few times. You get the data, publish the paper, and finally board Nature. The cover of magazines or other well-known journals. In some industries, especially the robotics industry, these machines need to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and millions of times a month. How to make a technology affordable Industrial strength of such strength is indeed the biggest challenge we face."


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