i3 - March/April 2019 - 10

Tech
We looked at jobs that humans don't want
to do because they are dangerous - like
handling raw proteins in refrigerated factory
settings or packing heavy bags of powdered
laundry detergent. That was the basis for Soft
Robotics; we can take these robotic hands
and put them on the end of any robotic arm
to pick and pack products for industries like
Food & Beverage, Advanced Manufacturing
or E-commerce & Retail. That's over a $10
billion business. The hands are even more
important because they must pick up a
light bulb without breaking it or pick a piece
of fruit without bruising it. That is why we
focused on the hands as a first step.

What Soft
Robotics
figured out was
the attribute of
a human that
mattered most to
large industries -
the ability to pick
things up as dexterously as the
human hand.

Q What other areas interest you?
A If you look at the progress in gaming
and the sophistication of the technology,
that is where I see innovation happening.
Whenever anyone asks me about interesting
ventures I always mention resilient technologies. If you and I were having this conversation 10 years from now, I would give you
the same healthy, safe, warm, fed, secure
and powered answer. But I would also say
some newer stuff like what you are seeing
in gaming and the electronic interface with
humans and what you are seeing in smart
cities - there is a lot of opportunity.

Q Who inspires you?
A I am impressed with the social awareness
- those are always going to be big markets.
It's not just about designing things for consumers that work when everything is going
well. It also is designing things for consumers that work when things are not going
well. Whether we are looking at South Africa
wondering about their access to water, what
happened in Puerto Rico when the hurricane demolished their infrastructure, or the
wildfires in California - things are happening all around the world. What you want
ideally, if you can, is to have the things that
matter to consumers be more robust and
prepared for the world's catastrophes.

Q What is Soft Robotics?
A When we created Soft Robotics, we

was the attribute of a human that mattered
most to large industries - the ability to pick
things up as dexterously as the human hand.
We created this gripper that can do many
of the functions that a human hand can do.
A human hand is like a pulley system with
soft and hard materials - we have bones,
tendons, muscle and the soft tissue of our
fingertips. Rather than trying to replicate the
human hand by designing a complex system
of rigid linkages, we looked to nature. We
were inspired by the octopus and its ability to
adapt to objects and pick them up, all while
remaining durable to a host of environmental
factors. The Soft Robotics' gripper is made
entirely of factory-resilient, soft materials
that do not require sensors or other electro-

thought that for robots to be more pervasive,
they should not be rigid, hard and boxy, they
should be soft, malleable and adaptable like
humans. But the hard metal stuff is easier to
industrialize. What Soft Robotics figured out

technical devices for operation. The computational power of the system is built into
the gripper itself, and through the power of
material science, is able to mimic the grasping capabilities of the human hand.

MARCH/APRIL 2019

and responsibility that is coming from our
younger generation. It is amazing to me how
teenagers (and I have three of them) are
genuinely interested in making the world a
better place. I spend lots of time with people
who are in middle school, high school and
college who are intrigued with the things that
I work on. And for me, that is motivational.
Despite the stuff you see on television with
many things that are obviously not right
in the world, my conversations with these
well-intentioned kids of all genders, religions,
geographies, economic areas - literally kids
from all sizes and flavors - are amazing. That
tells me to keep doing what I am doing so
that the world is a better place for them. The
other thing that motivates me is the ability to
work with them on new projects. And by the
way, they come up with great ideas.
GO ONLINE: Read the entire
interview at CTA.tech/i3.
I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

http://CTA.tech/i3

i3 - March/April 2019

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