Automated Configuration and Flexibilization of Vacuum Grippers

Today’s production systems are characterized by a high variety of products and small batch sizes offering potential for industrial robots, due to their flexibility. For economical automation of handling processes, it is also necessary to increase the flexibility of the vacuum gripper used. However, the explorative design of the latter is time-intensive and requires experts. This paper presents a concept to automate the design of vacuum grippers and increase their flexibility. For this purpose, the selection of gripping points are not only evaluated for individual components but also across variants to reduce the number of vacuum grippers required.