ETH Zurich PhD student Thomas Buchner Said“we have sections of soft tendons and capsules around the joint areas and tendons that are internally reinforced with a rigid material to have a load bearing structure.”
“if I pull on one of these fishing line tendons, then I can actually move the finger. And what this printing technology enabled us is to have the soft parts be really springy, so have a low viscosity. So when I touch it, it actually springs back immediately," he added.
Their hand combines soft and rigid plastic and is part of the growing field of “soft robotics" – the development of robots that are safer for people to work with and are better at handling delicate items.
The technology behind the hand comes from MIT spinoff Inkbit.
Instead of just stacking layers on top of each other, the team added a laser scanner to the 3D printer.
Each layer is checked for imperfections and instead of fixing them, the printer makes an adjustment on the next layer.
Researchers say the tech could one day be used to create custom prosthetics.
And can imagine even adding in tissue... according to robotics professor Robert Katzschmann.
"one of the things I'm particularly keen on is that we will start to go more into the tissue engineering with this technology, he said, adding "And so it provides the housing, or you might say the scaffolding for cells to grow."
"Maybe we can build a whole new types of tissues and use them either for robotics but also use them for medical purposes."
The researchers published their findings in the journal Nature. And while they say real-world use is still a long way off, it's a step that could lead towards more complex 3D-printing projects.
According to Buchner: “This printing process really enables us to have quicker iterations and a quicker process from an idea to a finished prototype that you can work with and understand what you have to still improve. So I don't see this hand on a human yet, but it helps us with the production process."
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