ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,441,002, issued on Oct. 14, was assigned to Boston Dynamics Inc. (Waltham, Mass.).
"Robotic gripper with seal detection" was invented by Joshua Timothy Geating (Allston, Mass.) and Christopher Everett Thorne (Waltham, Mass.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Some robotic arms may include vacuum-based grippers. Detecting the seal quality between each vacuum assembly of the gripper and a grasped object may enable reactivation of some vacuum assemblies, thereby improving the grasp. One embodiment of a method may include activating each of a plurality of vacuum assemblies of a robotic gripper by supplying a vacuum to each vacuum assembly, determ...