Sweat, robot, sweat, robot: a close-up of one of the soft robotic “fingers” sweating. | Image: Mishra et al
For the roboticist who has everything, here’s something new: a soft robot hand that sweats.
Designed to handle scenarios where long operating hours might lead to a robot overheating and its performance degrading, this three-fingered gripper stays cool by borrowing one of humanity’s greatest attributes: our sweat glands.
“The ability to perspire is one of the most remarkable features of humans,” material scientist T.J. Wallin, one of the gripper’s designers, told reporters during a briefing. “We’re not the fastest animals, but early humans found success as persistent hunters,” using our ability to run and stay cool via sweating to “physically exhaust our prey.”
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