Copying ants could help robots get a better grip

March 28th, 2025
Snapshots of the steps per experiment, starting with home pose, then grasping and lifting, manipulating to test the grasp stability, followed by stowing and releasing. Top is without hairs, bottom with hairs, producing better control of the object in poses f) and g). Credit: arXiv (2023). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2312.05364

Mimicking ants' hairy jaws could make robotic systems much more effective at picking objects up and moving them around.

A prototype "hairy robotic gripper" has been developed by the University of Edinburgh, in a project that includes as partners the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Ocado Group and Amazon Research. It improves the capability of current robotic handling systems with minimal increase in complexity or cost. The research is published on the arXiv preprint server.

Ultimately benefiting consumers and communities as well as business and industry, this innovative, versatile gripper could potentially be deployed in:

  • environmental clean-up
  • retail operations
  • construction
  • the agricultural sector
  • home applications
  • other industries

Jaws of success

Despite their tiny brains, ants are excellent at building nests and carrying food. For instance, they use the hairs on their jaws not just to sense objects but also, the researchers have discovered, to mechanically stabilize their grasp.

This fresh insight has led to the new gripper.

In tests with 30 different household objects (including a cup and a pasta sauce jar), the addition of "hairs" increased the prototype gripper's grasp success rate from 64% to 90%.

Ant inspired gripper "AntGrip" fitted to the uFactory xArm6 robot manipulator. Credit: arXiv (2023). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2312.05364

Past development of robotic handling systems has focused on making them like the human hand and equipping them with technologies such as deep learning. The downside has been that these systems have been complex, costly to develop and very data intensive.

Based on the behavior of the humble ant, the new gripper is much simpler.

An aluminum two-jawed parallel plate gripper is fitted internally with four rows of hairs made of thermoplastic polyurethane.

The hairs are 20mm long and 1mm in diameter, protruding in a V-shape.

This means they surround circular objects, which are particularly difficult to grasp.

Professor Barbara Webb of the University of Edinburgh, who has led the research, says, "Inspired by the strength and delicacy with which ants move things, our prototype is just the first step. Having filmed ants in high resolution, we've recreated in 3D the precise sequence of actions as they pick up seeds and other objects. This has been little studied in the past.

"Now we can see how their antennae, front legs and jaws combine to sense, manipulate, grasp and move objects. For instance, we've discovered how much ants rely on their front legs to get objects in position. This will inform further development of our technology."

Professor Charlotte Deane, executive chair at EPSRC said, "This innovative robotic gripper, inspired by the remarkable strength and efficiency of ants, is a great example of cutting-edge engineering research leading to real-world benefits. By mimicking the natural world, this new innovation has the potential to improve multiple sectors such as retail and environmental services, enhancing productivity and efficiency."

After some further testing for robustness, the researchers believe the gripper could be deployed immediately. A key aim is to enable it to pick up unfamiliar objects in clutter, a particular need in environmental clean-up.

Among its multiple potential applications, the system could be incorporated into autonomous mobile robotic systems that don't need to communicate with the cloud.

More information:
Mohamed Sorour et al, AntGrip -- Boosting Parallel Plate Gripper Performance Inspired by the Internal Hairs of Ant Mandibles, arXiv (2023). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2312.05364

Provided by Medical Research Council