Unlike many robotics applications, there was no need for a lot of complex motion and the company did not require the range of movement provided by a standard, six-axis robot. Grabit’s “unusual” requirements for the Stackit robot complicated the search process even further. Further complicating the issue was the need for Stackit to be a low-cost robot, without exception, as it needed to compete with the low labor rates in countries where footwear and apparel are largely produced.
Grabit quickly realized that no standard, low-cost robot could meet all of their requirements. Meeting the productivity and capability goals Grabit had set for Stackit proved difficult. What’s more, because Grabit’s electroadhesion gripper is so large, the robot needed to be able to withstand a big moment of inertia and offer the ability to rotate accurately.” “Because of the vast applications for Stackit, we needed a robot with a large reach that would not lose the high levels of precision needed for exacting material handling applications like the shoes from Nike. “The process looked at several factors,” explained Prahlad. “This prior understanding of industrial robots enabled us to fine tune our requirements before approaching any manufacturers.”Īfter selecting a handful of potential robot manufacturers, Grabit planned an extensive test and selection procedure to examine the potential of each one. “Two members of our team already had extensive experience in robot design, and both had been involved in the development of several SCARA robots,” said Greg Miller, president and CEO of Grabit. With the electroadhesion technology developed, Grabit’s next step in the development of Stackit involved finding the right robot on which to mount its electroadhesive gripper. Stackit is used by Nike to assemble the layers of material that comprise the shoe’s upper (the top portion of the shoe that covers the foot) 20 times faster than a human. Nike uses Grabit’s Stackit material handing robot system to produce up to 600 pairs of shoes in an eight-hour shift. Other investors in Grabit include Formation 8, Draper Nexus, Danhua Capital, Samsung, Brother Industries, ABB, Shanghai Electric, Flex, NTT Docomo and the Esquel Group. Nike is one of Grabit’s investors as well as one of the company’s first customers. Prahlad currently holds 36 separate patents related to electroadhesion, with more pending. Harsha Prahlad, discovered the concept of electroroadhesion while working at the non-profit organization SRI International.
Grabit’s co-founder and chief technology and products officer, Dr. Grabit’s electroadhesive gripper enables robots to stack such materials, like leathers, meshes and composite fibers. When charged correctly, the electrodes create an electric field that adheres to nearly any surface, allowing the robot gripper to pick and place the target material or part.Īccording to Grabit, until the introduction of electroadhesion, manufacturers have been unable to automate the task of fine materials handling. The process uses a flat pad of electrodes to generate positive and negative charges on its surface. Rather than attempting to mimic the actions of the human hand, Grabit’s technology uses static electricity-referred to as electroroadhesion-to handle materials. In fact, a recent announcement by robotics start-up Grabit shows that work in this area is advancing rapidly and even proving itself capable of outperforming humans. The difficulties that remain in robotic material handling applications do not, however, mean that significant advances aren’t continuing to be made. But the goal of meeting or exceeding the dexterity of the human hand still lies beyond the reach of most EOAT technologies. Certainly, there have been significant advances in various end of arm tooling (EOAT) components that can handle a variety of materials with ease. From the rise of collaborative robots and expanded integration of vision systems to the simplification of robot programming and control, robotic technologies-and the companies that supply them-are enjoying the benefits of industrial interest in the technology not seen since the automotive industry’s robotic boom of the 1980s.ĭespite the considerable advances made in robotic technologies over the past few decades, one area that has remained problematic is material handling. Robots have been one of the hottest automation stories of the past few years.
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