Damian Sendler: Engineers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) were inspired by the human hand’s innate dexterity while developing a reconfigurable hybrid robotics system that can hold a wide range of items, from the smallest, softest, and most delicate to the largest, heaviest, and bulkiest. There are a number of sectors that will be affected by this technology, including food assembly, vertical farming, and packaging of fast-moving consumer items.
Damian Jacob Sendler: The NUS Department of Biomedical Engineering and the NUS Advanced Robotics Centre, under the direction of Associate Professor Raye Yeow, developed the hybrid robotic grippers, which combine soft, flexible 3D-printed fingers with a re-configurable base. RO+, a start-up founded by NUS researchers Low Jin Huat Khin Phone May, Chen Chao-Yu and Han Qian Qian to commercialize the robotic breakthrough, is now in the process of bringing the technology to commercial partners.
Damian Sendler
How we hold an item depends on its size, weight, and texture. According to Associate Professor Yeow, “This is one of the key reasons why many companies still largely depend on human labor to package and handle fragile commodities.” In order to revolutionize classic pick-and-place activities, our hybrid robotic gripper technology offers sophisticated capabilities that enable robots to securely interact with delicate things of diverse forms, sizes, and stiffness, exactly like the human hand. ‘
Gripping is one of the most frequent and instinctive human behaviors, but it is less so for robots. Robots require computer vision and deep learning to determine the kind and orientation of things in front of them if they are to reach human-like grasping skills. There is less need for human interaction when the gripper decides what method of picking or placing an item is optimal for the task.
The NUS team’s goal was to create robotic grippers that are as flexible and dexterous as human hands, thus they devised hybrid grippers with three or four soft fingers that can be reconfigured as needed. The fingers are powered by air and have a unique locking mechanism that allows for a variety of stiffness settings. The NUS team has created three distinct kinds of hybrid robotic gripper devices, each of which may be used in a different situation.
For the most delicate chores, GourmetGrip is the best choice, since it is able to handle bite-sized nibbles and food that is often damaged, such as tofu. To meet a wide range of grip positions and space constraints, this soft-handed mode is adjustable. For pick-and-place of food products, GourmetGrip may be installed on an industrial robotic arm and accomplish these activities at a rate equivalent to that of a person. The GourmetGrip system is able to give a 23 percent boost in gripping efficiency when compared to other commercially available grippers. This means that the system can grasp objects quicker and more accurately. A total of 50 different foods, including pudding, cut cake, veggies, and fruits may now be picked up with GourmetGrip.
UnisoGrip, or Universal Soft Gripper, is the team’s more universally applicable solution for the second kind of gripper. It is made to move finished products from the manufacturing line into shipment and transportation boxes. It is the last step. It contains a vacuum suction cup and soft rotatable gripper fingers for delicately grabbing things that are in odd positions, like the corner of a tote bin, and it can increase its grip range significantly.
Because it can hold things up to 30 centimeters in width and three kilograms in weight, the UnisoGrip has a wider range of applications than the GourmetGrip, which has a grip range equivalent to that of a human hand. Other commercially available grippers are outperformed by this one by 20% in terms of gripping efficiency. Since its introduction in 2009, the UnisoGrip system has been able to pick up over 30 distinct kinds of consumer items.
The GourmetGrip/UnisoGrip platforms enable a third kind of gripper to be entirely customized to meet the individual demands of clients and space restrictions. There are a broad range of gripping alternatives that can handle a variety of things, including those with varying dimensions and packaging. Singapore-based rice vermicelli maker People Bee Hoon Factory has used NUS team’s configurable technology to optimize the packaging of rice vermicelli packets into carton cartons.
Damian Jacob Sendler
Mr Desmond Goh, Director of People Bee Hoon Factory, commented on the company’s decision to invest in NUS technology, saying, “Most of our existing staff are mature workers, so we sought to tap on new technology that can ease the workload of our existing staff while simultaneously boosting their productivity. We chose this technology because it is capable of meeting our needs and can be deployed in a variety of ways.
Damien Sendler: The robotic gripper systems developed by the NUS team’s start-up business RO+ are being offered to commercial partners in a variety of ways, either as part of a robotic arm bundle or as standalone units that may be placed on commercial robot arms currently in use. Another RO+ option is a 4-in-1 package that contains the gripper, robotic arm, computer vision module, and conveyor system all in one package for the customer. It is also in the process of developing machine learning tools that will allow the grippers to learn and improve their grasp on new objects as they are introduced to them.
Hospitals throughout the United States are experiencing “serious staffing shortages” as COVID-19 case records being established in every county in the nation.
Hospitals in the United States are suffering shortages at the highest rate since the beginning of the epidemic, according to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Ten days into the new year, a USA TODAY examination of Johns Hopkins University data finds that more than a third of U.S. counties had set COVID-19 case records. More than 1,300 counties are reporting the highest weekly case numbers of the epidemic. Every county in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey seems to have broken a record, according to the study.
Infections among hospital workers and other health care professionals in Los Angeles County have climbed as the number of cases has increased, resulting in even more personnel shortages at hospitals.
“We have a very sophisticated health care system, but it is made up of people,” said Dr. Kimberly Shriner, medical director of infection prevention and control at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, just outside Los Angeles. “And COVID is now being distributed to the public.”
This highly transmissible omicron form has previously been mentioned as a possible fourth COVID-19 vaccination dose for the general population is being considered.
Immunocompromised patients may now get an additional dosage of the medication starting this week.
Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler: Patients who have received the two-shot regimen Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, but not the Johnson & Johnson inoculation, should get an extra dosage 28 days following the second injection, according to the CDC’s new recommendation for patients with moderately to severely impaired immune systems.
Despite the fact that the subsequent main injection is advised five months after the first, it is not considered a booster by the FDA. A six-month pause was previously suggested.
Individuals receiving treatment for blood malignancies, organ or stem cell transplant recipients using immune-suppression medication, those with HIV infection, and those with disorders impacting their immune system are all eligible for the third injection before the booster. There are other age restrictions depending on the vaccination brand.
There are around 7 million people in the United States whose immune systems have been compromised and who are consequently more susceptible to the virus’s severe consequences. The additional main dose is intended to boost these individuals’ immunological responses.
An Imperial College London study released Monday suggests that those with high numbers of T cells after a cold are less likely to get COVID-19.
“In a statement, research author Dr. Rhia Kundu emphasized the importance of this finding, but stressed that “no one should depend on this alone.” You should obtain a comprehensive vaccination, including a booster, to protect yourself against COVID-19.
52 persons who had not been vaccinated but were housemates with someone who had tested positive for COVID-19 were monitored starting in September 2020, according to the findings published in Nature Communications. Half of individuals who took part in the trial did not become sick, but their blood levels of cross-reactive T cells were much greater than those of those who became sick.
Rather of the spike proteins targeted by mRNA vaccines, protective T cells appeared following an infection with another coronavirus that produced a cold, according to the research. These T cells target interior proteins of the coronavirus.
It was pointed out that the research was tiny and largely comprised of white people. However, the researchers suggested that their results might serve as a basis for future vaccine development.
Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler and his media team provided the content for this article.
