Pneumatic and hydraulic grippers are amongst the preferred gripper sorts (together with servo-electric). In case you’re questioning whether or not pneumatic or hydraulic grippers are prone to be the very best match on your utility, this text is for you as we evaluate and distinction the design, efficiency and value of hydraulic and pneumatic grippers.

Spoiler: As showdowns go, this one is simple to name. We’ll quickly uncover that for collaborative robotic purposes, there is no such thing as a severe competitors between the 2: pneumatic grippers are the best selection on your cobot-powered purposes.

Let’s discover out why…

What’s a hydraulic gripper? 

Hydraulic grippers are heavy-duty grippers that apply the kind of forces required to deal with heavy (normally >50kg, 110.23 lb) objects.

How does a hydraulic gripper work?

Hydraulic grippers use pressurized fluids to maneuver a piston. When the piston strikes, it transfers this pressure to the claw, opening and shutting it.
What’s a pneumatic gripper? How does a pneumatic gripper work?
Pneumatic grippers use strain from a compressed air provide system to produce the facility required to maneuver an inside piston, thereby opening and shutting the pneumatic gripper fingers (or ‘jaws’). Pneumatic gripper mechanisms include no motors or gears, which makes it simple to translate the facility of a piston/cylinder system right into a gripping pressure.

Because the majority of producing services have already got entry to compressed air, deploying pneumatic grippers is simple and cost-effective. One of many major advantages of pneumatic grippers is that they supply a excessive quantity of gripping pressure in a small, gentle and low-cost bundle. For manufacturing services the place house is at a premium, pneumatic grippers are a cost-effective and ergonomic selection. They’re additionally fairly simple to keep up –after getting your pneumatic gripper working, it could actually present hundreds of thousands of cycles with out requiring upkeep.

What’s the distinction between pneumatic and hydraulic grippers?

One of many main explanation why hydraulic grippers are not often, if ever, utilized in collaborative automation is as a result of the standard payloads do not match. For causes of security, ease of deployment, price, mobility and footprint, cobots are designed for lower-than-hydraulic payloads of as much as round 16kg (35.3 lbs). Subsequently, for nearly each conceivable cobot-powered utility, utilizing a hydraulic gripper can be costly overkill.

If you might want to elevate weights of 500kg (1102.31lb), for instance, an ordinary industrial robotic with a hydraulic gripper and fencing is likely to be your best option. However for Common Robots prospects, pneumatics supply completely ample power density for purposes equivalent to meeting, materials dealing with and machine tending.

Moreover, since hydraulic grippers include pistons and oiled elements, they’re much higher-maintenance than their servo-electric and pneumatic counterparts. Hydraulic gripper upkeep can be advanced and may require expert technicians to keep up the oil, pump and reservoir. This highlights one other vital purpose why pneumatic grippers are typically most well-liked over hydraulic grippers for collaborative purposes: cobots are designed for straightforward operation by non-expert end-users, so including a posh hydraulic gripping system to a cobot will undermine the general system’s ease of use. 

Since they depend on air relatively than fluids, pneumatic robotic grippers may be deployed in clear room environments. By comparability, hydraulic robotic grippers are too messy –particularly after they fail and leak hydraulic fluid into your work cell. 

Moreover, by way of price, hydraulic grippers are rather more costly than their pneumatic counterparts. If you’re interested in cobots partly due to their low price in comparison with conventional automation, then it would not make a whole lot of sense to deploy a hydraulic gripper that might simply price greater than the cobot itself. 

Lastly, if accuracy is vital to your collaborative utility, then understand that pneumatic gripping programs present better accuracy than their hydraulic counterparts. Your gripper’s URCap software program and straightforward integration with Common Robots cobot vary ensures a relentless circulation of information that can be utilized to tweak your purposes and processes, scale back downtime and enhance productiveness.

URCaps are particular software program packages designed to make sure easy programming and management of UR licensed end-effectors and elements. UR+ is a world ecosystem of elements, software program, and utility kits which have been validated and authorized to be mechanically, electrically and digitally appropriate with cobots from Common Robots. UR+ hosts a wide array of pneumatic grippers from you to select from.

Pneumatic grippers simply win this robotic gripper showdown, however they’ve their very own limitations. For instance, as a result of they depend on pressurized air circulation, pressure management will not be as exact as that supplied by electrical grippers. Offering a fragile grip can be a problem for pneumatic programs because it’s onerous to regulate the gripper at very low pressures. If an exterior air provide is required, this could add further price to your deployment. And whereas pneumatic grippers are appropriate for a lot of clear room purposes, in the event that they fail, they will contaminate the air contained in the work cell. For these causes, some producers desire to make use of electrical grippers for his or her materials dealing with wants.

UR+ is a one-stop-shop for pneumatic robotic grippers

Let’s check out a few of pneumatic robotic gripper choices obtainable via UR+

The GRIPKIT-P Collection from Weiss Robotics is a pneumatic gripper and dealing with system for Common Robots. The GRIPKIT-P system incorporates every little thing finish customers have to arrange materials dealing with, meeting and machine tending duties inside minutes. In case you want excessive dynamics and gripping pressure with compact dimensions, GRIPKIT-P pneumatic grippers (in parallel or centric design) are splendid.