Soft Grippers can Easily Grasp Raw Egg Yolk? It is the only commercial equipment for mass production in China and has a wide range of applications
According to the international robotics Association (IFR), the global industry has only solved the problem of automatic production and handling of 3% ~ 4% of regular rigid articles, and the remaining 96% of soft special-shaped vulnerable articles are still in the stage of manual loading and unloading, and the soft fixture has effectively solved this industry pain point.

In 2016, Beijing Soft Robot Technology (SRT) was officially established. At present, the team size has reached 150 people. Its R & D team comes from Beihang soft robot laboratory and has in-depth research on the structural design, material ratio and molding process of Soft Grippers. SRT has made many contributions in the field of soft grippers.

Different from the rigid structure of the traditional gripper, soft pneumatic gripper has a soft pneumatic “finger”, which can adaptively cover the target object without pre adjustment according to the accurate size and shape of the object, and gets rid of the binding of the traditional production line requiring the equal size of the production object.
At present, SRT has more than 60 intellectual property rights at home and abroad. Based on its profound technological accumulation, the company has reached technical cooperation with many universities / enterprises around the world to continuously promote the development of the industry.
At present, SRT has produced more than 40 types of soft pneumatic gripper products with different styles. The application industries of the products sold cover 3C electronics, food, medicine, daily chemicals, auto parts, fresh food, machining and other fields. Gripper soft robotics is a general technology for many industries to replace manual repetitive work. The wide industry demand is driving the rapid development of the market for gripper soft robotics.

Gripper soft robotics is a new type of soft robotic gripper, which can adapt to various unstructured environments and interact more safely with humans. The soft robotic gripper body is made of soft material, which is generally considered to be the material with young’s modulus lower than that of human muscle; Different from the traditional robot motor drive, the driving mode of soft robot mainly depends on the intelligent materials used; Generally, there are dielectric elastomer (DE), ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC), shape memory alloy (SMA), shape memory polymer (SMP) and so on.

The following is the bionic Octopus developed by FESTO, a foreign bionic giant. Its tentacles are attached with suction cups like real octopus tentacles. The whole bionic Octopus adopts a soft silicone structure that can be pneumatically driven.

The built-in vacuum tube of bionic octopus can independently provide adsorption kinetic energy and easily complete grasping, grasping and other actions.

FESTO is a German enterprise with high attainments in automation technology and bionic technology, especially in the field of bionics.

The original product of FESTO company is woodworking machinery, and the brand of woodworking tools is Festool. In the 1950s, FESTO first recognized the importance of pneumatic to industrial automation and became a leader in the field of pneumatic automation in the world.

FESTO also created a running on land: bionic kangaroo. Bionic kangaroo almost completely replicates kangaroo’s bouncing Kung Fu. Friends who have a certain understanding of robots know that it is very difficult to make robots jump.

The bionic kangaroo can complete continuous jumps and even jump over obstacles 40 cm high. Because of its unique power storage function, it can collect energy from the last jump and prepare for the next jump. If the user wears the matching bracelet, he can directly control the kangaroo with gestures.

The bionic kangaroo developed by FESTO almost completely replicates the kangaroo’s bouncing Kung Fu. With only a small piece of battery and the spring mechanism of its legs, the kangaroo can jump up and down immediately.

Complex sensors, connecting rod structures and high-pressure inflatable tanks used as “muscles” are used.

Foft robotic gripper has become a global hot spot of cutting-edge technology. Its application scenario for the whole industry has unlimited commercial potential. The commercial application of soft robotic gripper technology has very high technical barriers. We look forward to further research and exploration by more Chinese companies in this direction, which can change our work and lifestyle in the future.