A Multi-Wire Gripper with Variable Interval for Food Handling

This study presents a variable spacing wire gripper designed to enhance the stability of handling foods with various shapes and sizes. Traditional fixed-spacing grippers often struggle to adapt to various food types, resulting in insufficient contact points and an increased risk of damage or slippage. The proposed gripper adopts a parallelogram-based variable spacing mechanism that adjusts the spacing of the fingers according to the target object, ensuring a more robust grip. In addition,it uses highly elastic steel wires to increase contact points and prevent damage to foods. Experiments with different food items demonstrated that the variable-spacing design significantly improves gripping stability by ensuring adequate contact points. These findings underscore the potential of the gripper to advance automation in food processing facilities.