The Robotic Hand

The robotic hand is the actual "tool" that is attached to the end of the robot arm and performs the task at hand.

Photo of Barrington Grippers.

The most common type of robotic hand is the gripper, as shown above, but vacuum cups, weld guns, spray guns or whatever is required to complete the assigned task, can be fixed to the robot arm. 

These Grippers are also referred to as E.O.A.T. (End Of Arm Tooling).

Yet another term for Robotic Hands is End Effector.

Grippers are available in many types and configurations, but can be divided up as follows:

1. Parallel movement - 2 jaw.
   Usually of short stroke and high precision repeatability. High speed (because of short strokes).
    
2. Rotary movement - 2 jaw.
   The large open position, can be of use in some applications. Generally not as fast as type 1.
    
3. Parallel movement-3 jaw, concentric.
   Generally used to grip circular parts.

Design Notes. The gripper mechanism is available as a module, from many manufacturers, but the actual fingers, are usually designed and made, to suit the application. Consider the stroke of the actuator chosen, and never use all of it. For instance, if we are external clamping and the stroke of each jaw is 4mm,then ensure that we use only, say 3mm of stroke.

This ensures that the actuator is actually gripping the part, and has not "bottomed out". The use of sensors, to sense gripper open and closed, is only recommended, if the sensors are 100% reliable. Nothing is worse than trouble-shooting an application and having faulty switches that are not reliable! The E.O.A.T. is an environment that can be very hostile to sensitive switches-so be warned! We have found, that the sensor design from Schunk, can be very reliable, when used correctly.

For Robotic End Effectors, such as grippers. try these links:

Schunk

Barrington Automation.

 

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Please note that the above listed companies are by no means the only manufacturers, nor the only ones we have used, over the years, but they do make an excellent product, THAT IN THE CORRECT APPLICATION, should give years of trouble free service.

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To find out more about what you can do with the robotic hand, please feel free to contact us.

To find out about more types of industrial robots click here

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