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Thursday, October 19, 2006
A tiny pneumatic hand, with the ability to grasp objects smaller than a millimeter across has been developed by Yen-Wen Lu and Chang-Jin Kim of UCLA's Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department.
The researchers developed the microhand, which has four fingers built of minuscule silicon segments and polymer-balloon joints, to have a firm but gentle grip to facilitate manipulating tiny, delicate objects.
The hand opens and closes when the balloons in the joints are inflated and deflated. Because it is constructed of inert materials and is operated pneumatically rather than electronically, the micro-hand can operate in air or water, giving it the ability to grasp small biological samples which tend to be moist or submersed in a liquid environment.
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This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
