Festo has introduced the HPSX Universal Adaptive Gripper, a pneumatic soft gripper engineered to improve speed, hygiene and flexibility in demanding food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics applications.
Combining robust design, food-safe materials and adaptive silicone fingers, the HPSX directly addresses long-standing automation challenges where rapid, precise and gentle product handling is essential.
Peter Potters, product manager at Festo, says: “In developing the HPSX, we refined the gripper’s shape, dimensions and internal geometry to maximise gripping force while minimising air volume.
“This enables faster cycle times and multiple picks per second. At the same time, we selected a silicone material that is soft enough to prevent product damage but firm enough to securely grip objects and withstand high acceleration.”
The new gripper’s design reduces air consumption while maintaining high gripping force, enabling quicker actuation and faster picking cycles. The HPSX has been designed and tested to withstand acceleration forces of up to 15G while handling loads of up to 0.5 kg, ensuring reliable performance even in high-speed applications.
This combination of low air volume, strong grip and acceleration resistance delivers both speed and consistency on fast-moving production lines.
Gripper fingers are manufactured from a soft, silicone-based material specifically chosen for its controlled flexibility. This allows the HPSX to conform to delicate, irregularly shaped or hygienically sensitive products without damaging them.
The adaptive design eliminates the need for rigid, application-specific tooling, making the HPSX ideal for handling fragile food items, pharmaceutical products and cosmetics.
To meet stringent hygiene requirements, the HPSX features a corrosion-resistant, sanitary design that is easy to clean and maintain. The gripper has an IP69k high-pressure washdown rating and is built to withstand aggressive cleaning processes common in food and pharmaceutical environments.
It complies with EC 1935/2004 requirements and uses FDA-compliant, food-grade and metal-detectable materials, ensuring safe operation in regulated production environments.
The HPSX can handle a wide range of product shapes and sizes without requiring a tool change, significantly reducing mechanical changeover time. This flexibility is particularly valuable in applications such as cosmetics kitting, where a single gripper may need to pick and place multiple product types within the same production run.
By eliminating the need for frequent gripper swaps, manufacturers benefit from reduced downtime and increased overall equipment effectiveness.
Available in three sizes (40 mm, 70 mm and 100 mm) and in two-, three- and four-finger configurations, the HPSX offers nine variants to suit diverse applications. A universal ISO50 fitting enables straightforward attachment to existing robotic end-of-arm tooling.
In addition, the HPSX integrates seamlessly with Festo’s broader automation portfolio, including controllers, valves and pneumatic systems. Using single source reduces installation and programming complexity by eliminating interface and compatibility issues between components from different suppliers.
For OEMs and end users, this translates into faster commissioning, simplified troubleshooting and a single point of contact for service and support – further increasing uptime.
