image: Diego Misseroni - UniTrento
Credit: Diego Misseroni ©UniTrento ph. Federico Nardelli
This grant is a step forward toward industrial transfer and the realization of a promising frontier research project, which may soon be mature enough to produce a functional model to be tested and patented. Diego Misseroni, Professor of Construction and Aerospace Structures at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering of the University of Trento, has been awarded a Proof of Concept grant from the European Research Council (ERC PoC) for his project Flexgrip. This work builds on the results achieved within the still ongoing S-Foam (Self-Foldable Origami-Architected Metamaterials) project, coordinated by Misseroni himself and funded in 2022 with an ERC Consolidator Grant. The aim of the project is to develop a new type of scalable robotic grippers, inspired by origami design.
The Proof of Concept grant is awarded by the European Research Council to researchers who have already receiveda grant, with the purpose offacilitating the transition from basic research to practical applications and to the market. This grant is reserved for proposals with a strong innovation capacity and clear industrial potential.
The Flexgrip project. The basic principle is to take advantage of the shapes and kinematics of origami structures to develop a universal gripper, capable of grasping and handling objects with complex geometries, made of different materials – both rigid and soft – and of varying sizes, aiming to overcome in a pioneering way some of the current limitations of robotic manipulation. The innovation concerns the gripper (end effector), which is installed at the end of the mechanical arm, which is used to grasp objects and which, this is the most technologically relevant aspect, can automatically adapt to the objects to be moved. The system exploits the geometry of origami, combined with specially designed materials and metamaterials that provide extreme and adaptable mechanical properties.
"Our goal – explains Diego Misseroni – is to use more flexible structures and materials within the folds of the origami and more rigid ones for the faces. This makes the gripper adaptable to the dimensions, shapes and materials of the objects to be manipulated. The result – he continues – is a lightweight, rigid and flexible hybrid design, which combines the strength and load-bearing capacity of rigid grippers with the delicacy and versatility of soft ones, without the need for complex control systems, bulky sensors, or energy-intensive actuators."
This type of mechanism has several fields of application. In logistics, for example, it enables reliable picking and sorting of fragile, deformable or heterogeneous items, which remain a major challenge in e-commerce and warehouse operations. In the automotive sector, it offers a way to automate tasks that are still rely heavily on manual labor, such as handling cables, gaskets, foams or fabrics, components that are difficult to grasp using existing technologies.
The development of a universal gripper would reduce costs, time and material consumption, contributing to more efficient, lightweight and environmentally sustainable solutions.
"Intelligent, sustainable and flexible automation – adds Misseroni –would also allow people to work more safely. For example, it would reduce the risk of items being dropped during handling. Moreover, these robotic grippers could be integrated into advanced digital systems, promoting safer and more collaborative interaction between human operators and robots, in line with the principles of Industry 5.0."
The ERC PoC selection process is known for being competitive and rigorous: only proposals judged to be scientifically excellent and capable of delivering innovative and revolutionary solutions are eligible for funding. Another element that is evaluated is application potential and interest from the industrial sector. In this case, two companies have already shown interest in Misseroni's project: an Italian industrial automation company, and a Swedish technological company that uses an "industrial origami" process to bend metal sheets with robotic precision.
"Fondazione Hit - Hub Innovazione Trentino facilitated contacts with industrial partners- underlines Diego Misseroni- and supported the project throughout, while the Division for the Valorization and Impact of Research of UniTrento is actively engaged in enhancing research results and supporting the technology transfer to the production system."
About Proof of Concept grants. The ERC Proof of Concept Grant is intended for researchers who have obtained an ERC grant that is still in progress or has been recently completed. The grant recipients have access to a contribution of 150,000 euros for 18 months, to explore the commercial or social potential of their scientific research activity. In the second call of 2025, 136 projects were admitted to the ERC Proof of Concept funding, that is 300 grants over the whole year out of 879 submitted proposals, for a total budget of 45 million euros. Italy, with 33 ERC PoCs awarded in the last year, is the third country with the highest number of winning projects behind Germany (51) and Spain (42).