Full Text:
Researchers have successfully demonstrated soft robotic grippers able to collect underwater specimens. This new technology could enhance researchers’ ability to collect samples from largely unexplored habitats thousands of feet beneath the ocean surface, areas that scientists believe are biodiversity hotspots teeming with unknown life.
The soft grippers also could be useful in underwater archeology. The team of researchers successfully developed two types of grippers, and in the process demonstrated a new fabrication technique that allows for the rapid creation of soft actuators.Image credit: Kevin Galloway, Wyss Institute at Harvard University
