Vacuum Technology for Robotics

Application Areas

Individual Solutions for Many Tasks

When it comes to assembly, logistics and packaging, there are virtually no limits to lightweight robots. They move, transport, handle and palletize goods and workpieces. They also have great potential in quality control or in the loading and unloading of machines because these areas are often still little automated.

Schmalz is the market leader in automation with vacuum and is therefore active in all manufacturing and processing sectors.

Schmalz’s customers include small and medium-sized companies as well as large industrial companies and corporations.

Experience shows: Basically, the gripping process with vacuum technology offers many advantages. Only if the workpieces are too round, porous or permeable to air, for example, they cannot be gripped and moved with the aid of vacuum. The following examples show a small selection of applications that are particularly suitable for cobots with vacuum grippers.

Overview of standard applications with vacuum grippers

Pick & Place

During this handling process, the workpiece is picked up from a defined position and placed again at another.

Cobots can perform such tasks around the clock and with very high precision and repetition accuracy. If the tasks are repeated, the respective programming of the Cobot can be saved and recalled at any time.

The supreme discipline is the so-called “reaching into the box”, also called “bin picking”. Using a camera system, the cobot identifies the respective workpiece and automatically removes it from the box.

Packaging & Palletizing

1. The vacuum gripper moves even soft and sensitive materials as well as irregular shapes safely and gently.

2. Once the product quantity and the target position have been stored, the parts are systematically placed until the carton is full.

3. The finished packaged parts are neatly stacked on pallets at locations defined before.

Machine Loading & Unloading

Cobots can relieve specialists in the company of the monotonous loading and unloading of machines. What’s more, as cobots are always ready for use and can work day and night, the times when the machines are at a standstill are also reduced. Once the workpiece is finished, the cobot immediately unloads the machine and reloads it.

The cobots do not need much space for this, manual operation of the machines remains possible. With the vacuum grippers, cobots are particularly flexible and can be used on machines with different workpieces.

Quality Testing & Laboratory Analysis

1. The vacuum gripper handles the parts with low pressure and positions them precisely at the specified position for analyses or testing processes.

2. The parts are tested or worked on by machine. Once the process is complete, the cobot is notified.

3. In test processes, the cobot receives a signal as to whether the tested part must be forwarded for further processing or sorted out.

Assembly

1. The vacuum gripper grips the workpieces from above and deposits them reliably in the desired Position.

2. The individual components are gripped and assembled one after the other. Once saved, the work steps can be repeated as often as required.

3. Without spatial separation, the vacuum grippers take on monotonous tasks. People monitor, control and supervise the processes.

Vacuum Technology for Robotics