US Patent Issued to FIELDWORK ROBOTICS on July 7 for "End-effector" (British Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 7 -- United States Patent no. 12,672,606, issued on July 7, was assigned to FIELDWORK ROBOTICS Ltd. (Exmouth, Great Britain).

"End-effector" was invented by Thomas Sauerwald (Cambridge, Great Britain), Chris Fernando Pulle (Cambridge, Great Britain), Troy Bodkin (Cambridge, Great Britain) and Dan Whitear (Biggleswade, Great Britain).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention provides an end-effector (400) for a robotic arm in which a membrane (430) is inflatable to grasp an object. The end-effector comprises an internal volume (414) for receiving said object to be picked and the flexible membrane (430) within the internal volume. The membrane defines an aperture...