"Robotic snake" can grip and pick up objects – Advanced Science News

BEGIN ARTICLE PREVIEW: Researchers in Australia take inspiration from nature to create a soft-robotic gripper that moves away from the conventional hand-like design. Soft robots is a burgeoning field combining electrical engineering and materials science to create robots that can move without the traditional use of motors, cogs, hinges, and other joining parts. Instead, movement and actuation come from the properties of the materials themselves, for example, a single piece of material changing shape upon external stimuli such as light, pressure, or electrical current. As we learn more about these materials, scientists are getting better at designing soft robots that move in more precise, pre-designed ways. Now, a team the University of New South Wales Sydney, have made a soft robot inspired by natures. Namely, snakes. Publishing in Advanced Materials Technologies, the researchers made a material that behaves in a similar way to a snake’s body, or ele