Gripper technologies for food

industry robots

Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Introduction
Since the invention of the first industrial robot by George DeVol in 1959, the gripper has
been an integral part.
The whole idea of robots is based on the concept of some non-human device that can
perform tasks normally done by humans.
It might be a simple transportation, or a more complex task involving the use of some
sort of tool and processing.
The original industrial robots were truly material handling devices and nothing more. For
that reason the gripper was an essential part of the robot.

Hard gripping will refer to any gripping task

where the object has a well-defined shape and
is strong enough to withstand the force of a
pinching or similar gripping method.
Soft gripping will be used to characterize any
gripping task where the object is of soft
materials that can be easily influenced by the
force of the gripper

Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Gripper challenges in food process automation

In general food materials present challenges that are not normally seen with non-edible
products.
Soft materials
two major problems :

1. The material changes shape so that a fixed-width pinching device simply loses its grip on
the object.
2. The gripping force applied can damage the surface or interior of the object so that
quality is reduced.
Uneven surfaces
All naturally grown objects have uneven surfaces.
It may be only slight, or very rough.
The surface quality can influence the range of
gripping options.

Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Non-uniform shapes
All organic objects have imperfect geometrical
shapes. It is only fabricated objects that can present
perfect outer geometry.

Non-uniform shape is the biggest challenge for

gripper design and methods.
Hygienic requirements
Basically there are three major classes of contamination to be concerned with:
1. Toxic contamination: in the harvesting and processing no toxic substance should come
in contact with the food.
2. Bacteriological and fungal contamination: bacteria of all kinds have the possibility of
growing where there is organic material, and favorable humidity and temperature.
3. Discoloring: some handling and gripping methods may lead to discoloring, by leaving
small traces of material that might not be harmful but will be visible.

Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Gripping physics
All grippers should perform the basic function of transferring
the necessary force from the robot arm to the object in order
to move the object.
Type of force transfer through the gripper to
food materials:
Pinching: the gripper has two or more fingers that apply force to the handled object.
Enclosing: the gripper relies on fingers with large surfaces that enclose the object
partially or completely.
Pinning, penetration: the gripper has several sharply pointed pins that are pressed
into the object in a manner that creates a locking pattern.
Underpressure, suction: these grippers are often called vacuum grippers. They do not
however rely on total vacuum, but rather on a certain amount of underpressure in the
gripping area.
Surface effects, surface phase transitions: gripping can be obtained by cooling
down a contact area to a temperature well below the freezing point of water.

Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Pinching and enclosing grippers

The pinching gripper is the original gripper concept for
robots.

Two-finger solutions
Typical two-finger grippers have the appearance of a
prismatic body with two fingers extending from one
side.

The fingers are either moving in parallel or rotating

around a shaft at their base.

Normally they are actuated by pneumatic, electric and

hydraulic power,
Two-finger flat-faced finger grippers rely on friction to
generate the necessary force for holding the object.

The force required depends on the direction of the

acceleration in the movement.

Gripper technologies for food industry robots

In all cases the gripper fingers transmit

a force Ff opposing sliding along the
gripper surface:

Vertical up:

Vertical down:

Horizontal parallel to finger face:

Horizontal normal to finger face:

Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Two-finger servo gripper

o It is controlled to give a specified
gripper gap, or to grip with a
specified grip finger force F.
o The actuator housing is somewhat
bigger, see Fig.
o They are also more expensive, but
the extra cost can easily be justified
by the higher versatility of this
gripper type.
o The servo gripper requires a digital
command specifying the wanted
finger
o gap and grip force if force control is
implemented.
Multi-finger grippers
They are of three main classes:
1. Simple stiff-finger grippers with three or four fingers.
2. Many stiff fingers that partly enclose the object.
3. Human-like finger grippers with jointed fingers.

Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Enclosing grippers

They are designed so that they constitute a nearly

closed box that embraces the whole object when
closed.
Thus they are able to handle all variations of a product
as long as it fits inside this box.

The shape of this box is normally not a rectangular

prism; a boat shape is sometimes a more appropriate
description.

The gripper does not exert a pinching force unless the

object completely fills the box volume.
In most cases the force to move the object is exerted
from the box wall supporting the object in the
direction opposite to the combined force vectors of
gravitation and acceleration in the local movement.

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Gripper technologies for food industry robots

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Hygienic performance of pinching and enclosing grippers

o There are some sort of moving mechanical elements outside the gripper base
housing.
o Moving fingers require bearings, guides and shafts passing through walls. These
elements are always a concern with respect to hygienic requirements.
o They should be designed so that there are no narrow slits, grooves or openings to the
interior of the gripper where small particles of the food material and moisture can
collect.

o Particular parallel finger grippers are difficult to design according to this kind hygienic
requirements.
o Fingers should have a smooth surface and no concave areas that will collect particles
of any kind.
o For many food applications serrated fingers is unsuitable.
o The mechanism of gripper lubrication should be modified.
o The materials that will be exposed to the food handled must be of hygienically
acceptable quality

Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Penetrating (needle) grippers

They can represent a viable
alternative for handling food
goods.
Primarily they are usable for
meat, but it is possible that they
could be used for soft cakes as
well.

Advantages:
Single side grip.
Very strong grip
Precise positioning of the object.
High accelerations and transfers speeds.
The disadvantages are:
bacterial and other contamination.
Puncturing leaves holes in the object.
local tearing of the tissue of the object in some cases.

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Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Short needle, skin penetrating grippers

o Short needle grippers were

developed for textile handling.
o The gripper has many needles,
typically more than ten, which are
extended at a 45 to the grippers
object face.
o The needles must operate pair
wise in opposite directions.
o The needles extend 12 mm when
gripping, and retract completely
behind the grippers face when
releasing the object.

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Short needle, skin penetrating grippers

o All needles are operated simultaneously
by the mechanical action of a single

pneumatic cylinder inside the gripper.

o There are no reports of this type of
gripper being used for gripping meat or
any
o other foodstuff. It could be consider as
a candidate for gripping thin slices
o of sausage, cured meat or similar.

Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Deep penetrating needle gripper

o They were developed for the specific purpose
of handling meat.
o In particular handling of fish fillets has been
investigated.

o The function of the gripper is to use at least

two pairs of needles that are slanting towards
each other, typically at an angle of about 45
to the gripper face.
o These needles almost meet at a point 35 cm
in front of the gripper surface.
o A typical diameter for the needles is 2 mm.
o Each needle is operated individually by a
small pneumatic cylinder.

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Gripper technologies for food industry robots

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Lifting performance of needle grippers

The main performance parameter for a penetrating gripper is its ability to hold the object
during transfer.

This is related to the rupture strength of the material handled.

It is very difficult to create reliable mathematical models for the holding ability since the
rupture mechanism of meat in general is not well documented.
Hygienic performance of needle grippers
The holes for all the needles are places where residues from the handled materials will
collect.
A frequent purging of all needle holes with some antibacterial fluid seems to be
necessary.
For long needle grippers the hygienic challenges are met by building a special flushing
system into the gripper.
Hygienic requirements make it mandatory to use only stainless steel needles on
all types of needle grippers.

The housing should be either stainless steel or polymer.

Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Suction grippers
Suction grippers have the advantage
of being able to grip on one surface
only.
the physical size of the gripper at
the robots arm end can be made
relatively small.
But adding vacuum generating
devices and tubing to the gripper
does increase the volume and the
complexity of these grippers.
They use to handle chocolate,
cookies and other small food
objects.
The main drawback of standard suction grippers is their sensitivity to air leakage into
the suction cups.
This is a well-known phenomenon and limits the usage of traditional suction
grippers to non-porous materials.

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Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Strong underpressure grippers

Moderate underpressure, high-flow grippers

In the Coanda effect gripper a Coanda ejector is used to create a moderate
underpressure.
This ejector will convey a large volume of air at this moderate pressure
difference.

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Gripper technologies for food industry robots

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The underpressure obtained with a

Coanda effect gripper is one order of
magnitude less than what can be
obtained in standard suction grippers.
But since it accepts a leakage flow and
can operate on a large area suction cup it
will still be able to lift objects handled in
the normal food production.

Coanda ejector principle

Planar Coanda ejector CAD model

Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Obtainable underpressure for a Coanda gripper (9 20 mm throat size)

for a non-porous and a porous material. (Source: Lien and Davis, 2008 .)

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Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Bernoulli grippers
This is a noncontact gripper which could have
important hygiene advantages.
The gripping effect is dependent on the actual
local air velocity in the gap between the
gripper surface and the gripped object.

Repulsive force created by air flowing from a

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Gripper technologies for food industry robots

The gripping force of a Bernoulli gripper as a function of the

gripper gap. (Source: Dini et al ., 2009 .)

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Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Lifting performance of suction grippers

The lifting force depends on the obtainable underpressure.

The Coanda ejector may not provide enough underpressure to lift heavy objects.
The Bernoulli gripper comes closer to the standard suction cup with respect to lifting
capacity.
The Coanda effect gripper does work with porous and uneven surfaces for light objects.

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Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Hygienic performance of suction grippers

Both materials and the gripper design play an important role.
The material used in areas that come in contact with the product should be non-toxic
and hygienically approved.
Stainless steel and many plastic materials are acceptable.
The most common source of contamination is residues left on the gripper from the
handling of objects.
Suction grippers are vulnerable in this respect since they rely on air flowing into the
gripper.

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Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Surface effect (freeze) grippers

One very interesting idea for hygienic
gripping is to use the effect of almost
instantaneous freezing that occurs when a
cold body is brought into contact with a
wet object.
freezing forms a surface bond by the ice
formed on the interface area between the
cold body and the wet object.
The cold body has to have a temperature
typically around 10C to cause this quick
freezing action.
The main advantage of these grippers is the fact that they act single sided and can
be designed to very high hygienic standards.
But they also have a marked drawback in a somewhat unpredictable releasing
action.

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Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Design of freeze grippers

The speed of ice formation depends on the:
temperature of the gripper surface,
thermal capacity of both the gripper and the object
wetting capacity of the gripper surface.

One of the most important function parameters is the time to form a sufficiently
strong frozen film between the object and the gripper.

Gripping attachment times and temperatures for a Peltier element freeze

gripper with stainless steel gripping surface

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Gripper technologies for food industry robots

Freeze grippers with mechanical release

Freeze grippers with mechanical release have a
set of smaller metallic gripping areas called
freeze pads.
freeze pads are connected to a low-temperature
reservoir.
Fluid heat transfer mediums are usually applied,
brine or types of fluid that stay unfrozen at
temperatures below 10C.
Reversible heat flow grippers
It is built around a Peltier element which generates low temperatures .
The Peltier element is a semiconductor device that will generate a heat flow when an
electric current passes through it.
The direction of heat flow is determined by the direction of the electric current.
Freeze gripping is obtained by sending current one way through the Peltier element.
Reversing the current will release the object by melting the gripping ice

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Gripper technologies for food industry robots

The holding force of a freeze gripper is

sufficient .

Experiments have shown that the

holding force for fish fillet is larger
than the rupture force of the fish meat
tissue.

Experiments with gripping of textiles

showed that considerable gripping
force could be obtained even with only
partial ice formation on the gripper
face.

The measured rupture force for the

holding ice was in the range 915
N/cm 2 .

The major problem is the release time.

Typical release time for a Peltier

element gripper with current reversal
has a release time in the order of 0.5
1.0 s.

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Gripper technologies for food industry robots

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Hygienic performance of freeze grippers

The freeze grippers with mechanical release face the same hygienic challenges as the
pinching grippers.
residue should not be collect.
In the narrow gap between the knife and the freeze surface there will be a great risk of
residue collection.
The reversible heat flow grippers have a much better potential for extremely hygienic
operation.
The gripping surface is a smooth stainless steel surface.

There are no moving parts, and the housing can be made completely flat or convex to
make exterior cleaning very easy.

The grippers with steam release will expel a small amount of steam through holes
in the grip surface.
Since steam is a very good cleaning fluid, it is self cleaning.

The Peltier element gripper has no holes in the housing facing the gripped

object, no moving part and no fluid flow in the gripper action.

From a hygienic viewpoint it is the perfect gripper.