March/April | 2019 http://www.design-engineering.com34
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DES_MARAPRIL_ENCODER.indd 1 2019-03-08 3:55 PMFluidPower:News
A
s has become a tradition in the automation world, Festo
revealed its latest pneumatically driven robots at Hannover
Messe 2019. Most years, the automation company debuts a
mechanical animal, such as last year’s bat-like BionicFlyFox
and 2017’s OctopusGripper. This year, however, Festo pushed
the BionicSoftHand and BionicSoftArm, a human-like pneu-matically-driven hand and an arm, both designed to work in
close collaboration with human workers.
In line with the cobot and soft robotics concepts, Festo’s
BionicSoftHand doesn’t have bones. Instead, its fingers consist
of flexible bellows structures – air chambers wrapped in a 3D
textile knitted from high-strength, elastic threads. Varying the
weave of the fabric makes it possible to control where the
structure expands and where it doesn’t. As a result, the human-
like fingers are flexible, adaptive and sensitive, but still capable
of exerting strong forces, the company says.
Rather than weigh the BionicSoftHand down with servo
motors, the designers developed a digitally controlled pneumatic
valve terminal mounted directly on the hand. This allows each
finger to be supplied by a short air tube from the “wrist” and
controlled by proportional piezo valves while the overall system
is supplied by a single air tube through the arm.
For control, Festo has paired the robotic hand with an AI
routine that learns by trial and error. Instead of imitating a
specific action, the hand is given a goal, which it gets progres-
sively nearer to accomplishing through positive and negative
feedback. Sensors at its finger tips and “knuckles” provide the
necessary tactile feedback. As a demo, the BionicSoftHand was
tasked with rotating a 12-sided cube so that a particular face
points upwards by the end of the task. The movement necessary
to complete the task is taught virtually to the robot-hand’s
digital twin with assistance from 3D depth sensing cameras.
While not a companion to the hand, Festo’s BionicSoftArm
follows the same design principles. The cobot’s modular ele-
phant-trunk-like design allows for up to seven pneumatic
bellows segments and rotary drives. According to the company,Festo Unveils Latest
Bionics Projects
German automation company’s BionicSoftHand, BionicSoftArm and BionicFinWave
pneumatic robots juiced by artificial intelligence.Festo’s BionicFinWave takes its inspiration from the way that the fins
on cuttlefish and acquatic flatworms undulate, rather than flap, to
propel them through the water. (PHOTO CREDIT: PHILIPP FREUDIGMANN)DES_MARCHAPRIL2019_LAZ.indd 34 2019-04-10 1:56 PM