MIT designed a soft robotic system just for packing groceries

Self-checkouts may take on a new meaning sometime in the future. Instead of having to scan the items yourself, a grocery packing robot may be able to do it for you.

It sounds like science fiction, and yet engineers at MIT have been working to develop a new soft robotics system that combines computer vision with a soft robotic gripper to help it bag up a wide range of items. The robot is aptly named RoboGrocery, and it was designed and engineered by MIT’s CSAIL department.

So far...