A gripper is an end-of-arm tooling used on robots for
grasping, holding, lifting, moving and controlling of
materials whenever they are not processed. Human hands
have been the most common, versatile, effective and
delicate form of material handling.
But, for repetitive
cycles, heavy loads and under extreme environments,
grippers had to be developed to substitute for human
hands.
In the 1960s, after the emergence of modern robots,
grippers replaced human hands on numerous occasions.
Robot-gripper systems are found to be effective for
repetitive material handling functions in spite of their
initial capital and ongoing maintenance expenses because
of their reliability, endurance and productivity