Robohub.org
 

New-tech grippers hit the market


by
13 January 2014



share this:

Empire Robotics, a Boston-based start-up, is beginning to sell their VERSABALL kits, a new-tech jamming gripper enabling adaptive gripping operations with a single inexpensive tool.

Filled with a granular material, in one mode it is squishy enough to envelop an object. Then, when a vacuum is created inside the ball, the granules get pulled together, solidifying around the object. The unique design enables the gripper to pick up a wide range of different objects, which can weigh up to 20 pounds. Early work was done in partnership with iRobot of Bedford, and funded by the Pentagon’s R&D arm, DARPA. Cornell holds the patent.

Grabit, a Silicon Valley new-tech gripper start-up, is working with customers on development projects to perfect their new electroadhesion technology. Electroadhesion is an electrically controllable adhesion technology that requires ultra-low power consumption. The technology was developed and patented SRI International. Grabit’s products include grippers and fixtures, case and box handling grippers, and smart conveyors for manufacturing and logistics.

Grippers – the hands of robots – are the physical interface between the robot arm and the work piece. Up until these two start-ups, there used to only be four types of grippers: vacuum, pneumatic, hydraulic and servo-electric (or, for the more technical reader, impactive, ingressive, astrictive or contigutive).

Often combined with clamping, gripper manufacturers abound, but Schunk, a family-run German company, has been at the forefront of the industry. They will soon be bringing to market a 5-fingered hand with sensors on each finger’s pads, for intricate work.



tags: , ,


Frank Tobe is the owner and publisher of The Robot Report, and is also a panel member for Robohub's Robotics by Invitation series.
Frank Tobe is the owner and publisher of The Robot Report, and is also a panel member for Robohub's Robotics by Invitation series.





Related posts :



Rethinking how robots move: Light and AI drive precise motion in soft robotic arm

  01 Oct 2025
Researchers at Rice University have developed a soft robotic arm capable of performing complex tasks.

RoboCup Logistics League: an interview with Alexander Ferrein, Till Hofmann and Wataru Uemura

and   25 Sep 2025
Find out more about the RoboCup league focused on production logistics and the planning.

Drones and Droids: a co-operative strategy game

  22 Sep 2025
Scottish Association for Marine Science is running a crowdfunding campaign for educational card game.

Call for AAAI educational AI videos

  22 Sep 2025
Submit your contributions by 30 November 2025.

Self-supervised learning for soccer ball detection and beyond: interview with winners of the RoboCup 2025 best paper award

  19 Sep 2025
Method for improving ball detection can also be applied in other fields, such as precision farming.

#ICML2025 outstanding position paper: Interview with Jaeho Kim on addressing the problems with conference reviewing

  15 Sep 2025
Jaeho argues that the AI conference peer review crisis demands author feedback and reviewer rewards.

Apertus: a fully open, transparent, multilingual language model

  11 Sep 2025
EPFL, ETH Zurich and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) released Apertus today, Switzerland’s first large-scale, open, multilingual language model.



 

Robohub is supported by:




Would you like to learn how to tell impactful stories about your robot or AI system?


scicomm
training the next generation of science communicators in robotics & AI


 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence