The Array Manipulator — A Generic Material Handling Device

While robots have proved to be ideal for the manipulation of single articles accurately in three dimensions, they are not as cost‐effective in industry for tasks which require simultaneous manipulations of several parts. In addition, changes in part geometry often necessitate the redesign of the gripping device, modification to the sensors and re‐examination of the grasping strategies to be used. These tasks are time consuming and add to the inefficiency of the approach.