Wyzo sidebot combines with Piab’s ‘extremely lightweight’ mini gripper

Handling food or other small, lightweight products quickly and easily with human-machine interaction – that’s exactly what the Wyzo sidebot is designed to do.

With a maximum payload of one kilogram, the weight of the gripper is critical. So, what could be a better fit than Piab’s featherweight, the MCG, at just 270 grams, which also has “versatility and outstanding energy efficiency”.

Process automation continues to advance in the food, packaging, cosmetics, pharmaceutical and electronics industries. People in these sectors often work side by side with machines.

This usually precludes the use of industrial robots, while the power spectrum of cobots is not always sufficient for such high-speed, repetitive pick-and-place operations.

To close this gap, the Swiss company, developed the sidebot Wyzo, which combines the advantages of a conventional delta robot with those of a cobot.

Thanks to the gearless and thus oil-free motors used, the sidebots are particularly suitable for applications that require an extremely clean environment.

As an “extremely lightweight” and space-saving robot, the Wyzo sidebot has a payload of between half a kilogram at full speed and up to one kilogram with reduced performance.

In order to utilize this as fully as possible, the selection of the end effector or rather its weight is crucial.

However, the MCG from Piab was not only able to convince with its light weight as Christian Vouillamoz, CTO at Wyzo, explains: “For us, flexibility was also crucial.

“Since the sidebot can be moved effortlessly from one job site to another, we were looking for a gripper that was not only lightweight, but could also be easily retooled to handle new tasks.

“The multiple tooling options offered by the MCG are exactly what we needed for this. And thanks to its Quick-Click Toolchanger, the changeover is done in no time at all without any tools. We were also impressed by the ease of implementation. It took us just one hour to get the system up and running.”

Bernd Gries, head of custom-line solutions at Piab, says: “At only 270 grams, the MCG is probably the lightest cobot gripper in the world. Like an ant that can carry many times its body weight, the MCG can lift up to 5 kilograms.

“This is made possible by producing the components using high-quality, lightweight 3-D printing. Its versatility is conveyed by the possibility of equipping it flexibly with a wide variety of suction units.

“The combination of pump unit with integrated COAX vacuum ejector technology and separate grippers allows maximum flexibility. Thanks to the integrated blow-off function, high speed processes are possible.”

Vouillamoz continues: “While we knew the Piab ejectors were energy efficient, we did not expect them to outperform previous models by a factor of eight, results that came out of our inhouse test comparisons.

“In the current climate of skyrocketing energy costs, this is obviously a significant advantage. We are pleased that we can not only make our customers’ processes more productive, but also contribute to the careful use of resources in a double sense, in terms of the environment and in terms of the cost of system use for our customers.

“The ability to measure the vacuum pressure and flow directly on the product has great advantages and allows extremely fast response times. This is important as the Wyzo sidebot operates at 90 cycles per minute. We were also immediately convinced of the quality of the measurements.”