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About

Akito Nomura is a leading researcher in search and rescue robotics, specializing in soft gripping mechanisms and novel mobile platforms designed for disaster response. His most influential work centers on developing grippers that can handle fragile, collapsible, or irregularly shaped objects without applying excessive force—a critical capability for retrieving victims or sensitive items from rubble. Nomura’s landmark 2018 paper on the jamming layered membrane gripper (48 citations) introduced a deformable, bag-based mechanism that grasps objects by conforming to their shape, minimizing pressure and enabling safe manipulation of soft or brittle targets. He further advanced this concept with a variable inner volume mechanism for large-object gripping (14 citations), enhancing the universal gripper’s performance. Beyond gripping, Nomura contributed to mobility with the planar omnidirectional crawler (13 citations), a mechanism allowing robots to traverse narrow, soft, or unstable terrain. His work culminated in the development of the multifunctional rescue robot FUHGA2, which demonstrated high mobility, dexterity, and search capability at the World Robot Summit 2018 (27 citations). Nomura has also explored unconventional frontiers, such as edible robotics with an omnidirectional expanding torus mechanism made of gelatin. His innovations directly address real-world challenges in search and rescue, making robots more adaptive and gentle in critical operations.