Octopus-Inspired Underwater Gripper with Rapid Stiffness Tuning and Robot Enabling Upward Transport

Area of Science:

• Robotics and Marine Technology
• Biomimetics and Soft Robotics

Background:

• Underwater operations require adaptable grippers, but current rigid and soft grippers have material limitations.
• Existing grippers lack the versatility needed for diverse underwater tasks like exploration and environmental protection.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an octopus-inspired underwater gripper with rapidly tunable stiffness for enhanced object manipulation.
• To integrate this gripper with an upward transport robot for efficient autonomous marine operations.

Main Methods:

• Designed an octopus-inspired gripper with rapidly tunable stiffness (1.3s softening, 0.8s rigidification).
• Integrated the gripper with an active buoyancy control robot for vertical object transport.
• Emulated octopus multimodal grasping for handling various objects in cluttered environments.

Main Results:

• Achieved the shortest reported stiffness transition time for underwater grippers.
• Demonstrated successful manipulation of diverse objects (light/heavy, soft/rigid) in simulated cluttered environments.
• Enabled continuous grasping and vertical transport of submerged objects via integrated buoyancy control.

Conclusions:

• The developed gripper offers a robust solution for adaptive underwater manipulation, surpassing limitations of existing technologies.
• This technology has significant potential for autonomous marine operations, ecological restoration, and deep-sea exploration.
• The rapid stiffness transition and multimodal grasping represent a substantial advancement in underwater robotics.