Experimental Study of Non-Contact Robot Gripper for Food Industries

Abstract

A new gripping principle, based on Coanda effect was applied successfully in designing and developing a non contact robot gripper to curb the gripping challenges faced in the food industries. Two designs of the non contact grippers/ejectors which are working on Coanda effect are presented in this paper. The first design was made with one suction head while the second design was made with multiple suction heads. Experiments were carried out on both ejectors to observe their holding force on food materials as a function of mainly the pressure, flow of the primary air and other parameters. Tangible results were derived from the experiments, tabulated and shown in graphical forms; from which relationships between the parameters were derived. When tested on thick bark/packed food materials, they left no suction marks on them.