Modular, reconfigurable prehensor for grasping and handling limp materials in the shoe industry

The paper presents an innovative prehensor developed within the European project EUROShoE. This prehensor enables multi-point grasp, firm hold and a gentle transfer of limp items. It is the end-effector of an high speed manipulator, acting in co-operation with other manufacturing units. Shoe and clothing industries, aiming today at a dramatic renovation of the concept of the goods from mass produced to mass customised, are a good benchmark for virtual engineering techniques, that are the base of concurrent design of disposals and systems for agile enterprise. Following this approach, the prehensor design process has availed of fully implemented digital mock-ups and has run extended virtual trims to accomplish the analysis of the prospected fixture dynamical behaviour, as stand-alone device and as integrated end-effector of a robotic environment. The design methodology has assured low inertia, high modularity and full flexibility, adapting to the picking of all the templates of a current shoe production (assumed as reference application for the template shapes). A prototype of the prehensor has been realised and early performance tests done.