Sinatra Nina R, Teeple Clark B, Vogt Daniel M, Parker Kevin Kit, Gruber David F, Wood Robert J
John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Department of Natural Sciences, Baruch College, City University of New York, 55 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10010, USA.
Sci Robot. 2019 Aug 28;4(33). doi: 10.1126/scirobotics.aax5425.
Here, we present ultragentle soft robotic actuators capable of grasping delicate specimens of gelatinous marine life. Although state-of-the-art soft robotic manipulators have demonstrated gentle gripping of brittle animals (e.g., corals) and echinoderms (e.g., sea cucumbers) in the deep sea, they are unable to nondestructively grasp more fragile soft-bodied organisms, such as jellyfish. Through an exploration of design parameters and laboratory testing of individual actuators, we confirmed that our nanofiber-reinforced soft actuators apply sufficiently low contact pressure to ensure minimal harm to typical jellyfish species. We then built a gripping device using several actuators and evaluated its underwater grasping performance in the laboratory. By assessing the gripper's region of acquisition and robustness to external forces, we gained insight into the necessary precision and speed with which grasping maneuvers must be performed to achieve successful collection of samples. Last, we demonstrated successful manipulation of three live jellyfish species in an aquarium setting using a hand-held prototype gripper. Overall, our ultragentle gripper demonstrates an improvement in gentle sample collection compared with existing deep-sea sampling devices. Extensions of this technology may improve a variety of in situ characterization techniques used to study the ecological and genetic features of deep-sea organisms.
在此，我们展示了超轻柔的软体机器人致动器，其能够抓取凝胶状海洋生物的精细样本。尽管先进的软体机器人操纵器已证明能够在深海中轻柔地抓取脆性动物（如珊瑚）和棘皮动物（如海黄瓜），但它们无法无损地抓取更脆弱的软体生物，如水母。通过对设计参数的探索以及对单个致动器的实验室测试，我们证实我们的纳米纤维增强软体致动器施加的接触压力足够低，以确保对典型水母物种造成的伤害最小。然后，我们使用多个致动器构建了一个抓取装置，并在实验室中评估了其水下抓取性能。通过评估抓取器的采集区域和对外力的鲁棒性，我们深入了解了为成功采集样本而进行抓取操作所需的精度和速度。最后，我们使用手持式原型抓取器在水族箱环境中成功操纵了三种活水母物种。总体而言，与现有的深海采样设备相比，我们的超轻柔抓取器在轻柔样本采集方面表现出了改进。这项技术的扩展可能会改进用于研究深海生物生态和遗传特征的各种原位表征技术。
