The Bionic Handling Assistant: a success story of additive manufacturing

摘要

Purpose This review will describe the development of the Bionic Handling Assistant as well as the additive manufacturing (AM) process of robot grippers and its possibilities. Design/methodology/approach AM offers the chance to use the additive processes to produce highly flexible automation parts and systems as the Bionic Handling Assistant in small and medium quantities that can utilize a lot of design advantages provided by the process. Findings A lot of products of today and especially tomorrow could be produced by rapid manufacturing. New categories of products, such as the Bionic Handling Assistant, will occur. Originality/value In the paper, aspects of a visionary scenario for future productions are shown and demonstrated on the Bionic Handling Assistant.