On the Use of Vacuum Technology for Applied Robotic Systems

A variety of real-world robotic applications assume reliable grasping mechanisms to facilitate the effective management of objects. Vacuum technology has been frequently used for the development of end of arm tools for industrial robotic applications. Besides its effectiveness, the vacuum technology may occasionally face issues when the surface of the object to grasp is full of cavities or has an arbitrary non-flat shape. The present work studies the development of vacuum gripping mechanism for industrial environments, by assessing the importance of the vacuum generator technology, the use of shock absorber and the plasticity of the suction cup. The vacuum system is integrated in the end-effector of a delta-robot that is used for sorting recyclable wastes, thus providing the opportunity to assess vacuum performance on difficult and demanding situations. The obtained results show that the use of different vacuum generators has rather minimal effect on the performance of the composite system. On the opposite side, the use of the shock absorber and the plasticity of the suction cup may greatly affect system performance, especially for gripping objects with complex surfaces. To overcome the relevant issues, we have implemented a custom made suction cup that significantly facilitates gripping, even for dirty and oily objects. The composite system has been tested on a realistic recyclable waste sorting scenario with high success rates in gripping recyclable objects.