Liquid metal universal grippers for gentle, adaptable, multiscale manipulation

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Materials Science
• Biomimetics

Background:

• Amoebas exhibit remarkable morphological adaptability for prey capture and excretion.
• Existing robotic grippers often lack versatility in handling objects of varying properties and environments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a liquid metal universal gripper inspired by amoeba locomotion.
• To achieve effective grasping and active releasing of diverse targets in liquid and air.
• To enable multiscale operation and tunable release speeds for delicate and microscale objects.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a liquid metal gripper utilizing surface tension for active release.
• Demonstration of grasping and releasing capabilities across 14 orders of magnitude in weight.
• Testing of the gripper's performance in various environments, including non-electrolyte solutions.

Main Results:

• The liquid metal gripper successfully grasped and released objects ranging from 10^-12 g to 200 g.
• Achieved a low gripping contact pressure of approximately 10 Pa, suitable for delicate items.
• Demonstrated millisecond-scale capture and release of moving objects without precise alignment.
• Enabled tunable active release of micro-objects via a surface tension-induced mechanism.

Conclusions:

• The liquid metal gripper presents a novel solution for versatile object manipulation, inspired by biological systems.
• Its multiscale operation, low contact pressure, and tunable release speed surpass existing robotic grippers.
• The gripper's environment-agnostic design and ability to handle delicate and microscale objects offer significant advancements in robotics.