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Scientists at the University of Bristol are developing a new robotic suction cup inspired by octopus suckers that can grasp rough, curved and heavy stone.
The average octopus has eight arms and 240 suckers per arm. These suckers offer the creatures superb adaptive suction abilities, enabling them to grasp onto various objects – including attaching to dry, complex surfaces such as rocks and shells.
A research team based at the university’s Bristol Robotics Laboratory has been looking into just how these biological suckers work, with the aim of creating artificial suction cups that can be used in industrial environments.
Currently, industrial solutions use air pumps to generate suction. However, many natural organisms with suckers, including octopuses, suckerfish and leeches, are able to maintain adaptive suction by exploiting just their soft body structures.
Previous studies into biological suckers show that suction is due to the mechanical deformation of the organism’s soft body, as well as in-sucker mucus secretion, which has high levels of viscosity.
The Bristol team demonstrated the effectiveness of this biological process through the creation of a multi-layer soft structure and an artificial fluidic system that mimics the musculature and mucus structures of biological suckers.
Multi-layer soft materials first generate a rough mechanical conformation to the substrate, reducing leaking apertures to just micrometres. The remaining micron-sized apertures are then sealed by regulated water secretion from an artificial fluidic system based on the physical model. This means the suction cup achieves long suction longevity on diverse surfaces but with minimal overflow.
Tianqi Yue, lead author on the research study, said: “We believe the presented multi-scale adaptive suction mechanism is a powerful new adaptive suction strategy that may be instrumental in the development of versatile soft adhesion.”
The team believe their findings have great potential for industrial applications, such as providing a next-generation robotic gripper for grasping a variety of irregular objects.
The next step is to build a more intelligent suction cup by embedding sensors to regulate its behaviour.
