Our SoftGrip team is continuing its efforts to spread the project mission like our latest journey to Pakistan. This time, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna participated in the 6th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft) held between April 3-7 in Singapore. This year’s conference aimed to dive deeper into soft robotics for sustainable development in multiple fields, from healthcare and agriculture to industrialisation and cities.
Regarding RoboSoft 2023, a paper titled “Variable Kinematics enabled by Layer Jamming Transition in a Soft Bending Actuator” was accepted by the conference. The paper was authored by Niccolò Pagliarani, Giacomo Picardi, Syeda Shadab Zehra Zaidi and Matteo Cianchetti. Its main focus was on the first version of the long finger that could be adapted to the SoftGrip project for the pinching grasp thanks to the integration of variable stiffness mechanism based on Layer Jamming Transition. For the occasion, Niccolo Pagliarani attended the event and gave a poster presentation explaining how the finger works and its potential uses in various applications.
Following our RoboSoft participation, our project also joined the workshop on Soft Robot Stiffening at theNational University of Singapore on April 14. Once again, Niccolò Pagliarani delivered a speech on “Variable Stiffness as enabling technology towards real-world soft robotic applications.” More specifically, the emphasis was put on the state-of-art variable stiffness mechanisms for developing novel robots since it is the core challenge of soft robotics. Achieving variable stiffness is one of the objectives of our project to effectively develop a functionalised soft gripping system for delicate produce harvesting from mushrooms to soft fruit.
