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Robotic sucker can adapt to surroundings like an actual octopus | Gripping and releasing irregular surfaces is harder than it might seem.

Gripping and releasing irregular surfaces is harder than it might seem.

From color-changing materials that function like cephalopod skin to a tiny biomimetic robot that looks and moves like an actual cockroach, the extraordinary adaptations of some organisms have upgraded our technological capabilities. “Organisms dexterously deform their soft body to make a rough shape conformation on the substrate,” Yue and his team said in a study recently published in PNAS. When faced with challenging surfaces, such as rocks and plastic figures with rough textures and many curves, the silicone sucker on its robotic arm was able to conform to them and hold its grip for long periods of time with barely any leakage.

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