Mixed-Product Robotic Picking
Festo has introduced GripperAI, a universal AI-based software that enables fulfillment-center robots to pick a range of items without custom programming. The software operates locally at the cell on a standard industrial PC with a connected 3D camera and automatically adjusts for mixed products without programming or template loading between SKUs.
Deploying GripperAI involves standard integration steps: mounting and aligning the camera, verifying usable lighting, calibrating the robot base to the camera’s frame, and configuring the software’s pick parameters. After that, for each sighted item, the software calculates a gripping point, selects a tool when multiple ones are available, and the robot’s path control carries out the move. If a grip is missed, the system recalculates and retries, sustaining picking operations rather than stopping for reprogramming.
GripperAI is compatible with most industrial robots, cobots and Cartesian systems that have a path control system to execute the motion the software specifies. Because the software is robot-agnostic, bin-picking and conveyor-emptying cells can be deployed or expanded without locking into a single brand or model.