This research is closing a loop! 📿 Literally. Grasping always had a tradeoff: either you’re versatile when forming a grasp, or strong and gentle when holding it, rarely both. This new concept developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, called loop closure grasping, sidesteps that tradeoff entirely. During grasp creation, the robot uses an open-loop topology, allowing free, unconstrained motion to wrap around objects of almost any shape. Once the grasp is formed, the mechanism closes the loop, switching into a structure that can hold heavy loads gently, with extremely high compliance and low contact pressure. By changing topology instead of forcing one morphology to do everything, the system achieves something grasping that is strong, gentle, and versatile at the same time. It opens the door to handling objects that have always been hard for robots. Heavy but fragile items, irregular shapes, and even human bodie (that’s how you wake me up on Sunday morning) Congrats @KentaroBarhydt and rest of the involved! 🔥 Here's the paper: ~~ ♻️ Join the weekly robotics newsletter, and never miss any news →