Sustainable Manufacturing Through Energy Efficient Handling Processes

The handling of air-permeable semi-finished products in particular for textiles is often done by low-pressure suction grippers. These grippers create a slight vacuum at a large suction rate. A disadvantage of this type of gripper is the huge energy demand required for vacuum generation. One reason for this is that the gripping elements operate by default with the maximum possible suction power to compensate suddenly occurring disturbances and ensure a safe transport of the semi-finished products. To minimize the required energy consumption, a new approach was developed. Each gripping element is continuously monitored by sensors. In a control loop these information are used to adjust the suction power by a valve. Thus, the suction power is decreased if there are no disturbances and is abruptly increased when disturbances occur. This procedure allows a resource efficient handling by reducing the average suction power and thus the energy consumption by more than 50%.