208 Flexible Gripper System

This paper attempts to conceptualize a better gripping system for the picking and placing of bottles after replacing the current system. Existing systems use suction/gripper cups which can pick only one bottle per cup whereas the proposed system is capable of picking multiple bottles. The design was simulated using MATLAB Simulink, SimMechanics and SimHydraulics Toolboxes and a prototype was built to validate the concept. This paper presents a concept of a guide-based gripper system with flexible plates to enable gripping of bottles of different geometries and quantities.