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Smart Sensing Gripper Kits



Rethink Robotics has announced the ClickSmart series, a solution for end-of-arm tooling that incorporates smart sensing and rapid swapping capabilities.

The ClickSmart series offers the new ClickSmart Plate, an intelligent toolplate that lets users swap end effectors in seconds, by hand and without any tools. Embedded sensors in the five new gripper kits enable intelligent grasping and smarter part handling on Rethink Robotics' Sawyer robot powered by the Intera 5 software platform.

"The ClickSmart family of gripper kits contains the essential components that allow end users to quickly construct end effectors suitable for most automatable tasks," said a company spokesperson. The ClickSmart series includes five different categories of gripper kits and a ClickSmart Plate with embedded sensing, gripper recognition and the ability to access actuators and sensors through Rethink Robotics' software platform.

"The ClickSmart family of gripper kits will allow our customers to deploy robots faster, more intelligently, in more tasks and applications and without any time-consuming customization," said Scott Eckert, President and CEO, Rethink Robotics. "Never before has a robot manufacturer offered a single source solution for fully integrated deployments. Through the combination of Sawyer, Intera 5 and ClickSmart, the single source is Rethink."

The ClickSmart family of gripper kits is designed to reduce sourcing efforts for manufacturers, who no longer need to search through multiple catalogs to select components and compare prices. Instead, manufacturers can purchase a fully integrated solution from Rethink Robotics. The gripper kits are available in large pneumatic, small pneumatic, large vacuum, small vacuum and foam vacuum options.

Customizing an end effector requires specialized expertise in mechanical design, signal configuration and task flows that many manufacturers do not have on staff. A well-designed and easily configured end effector is vital to the success of the most high-performing and complete automation solutions, and will open up a variety of new applications for any robot.

The ClickSmart Plate has an embedded memory module, which stores the configuration of the attached end effector. When the ClickSmart Plate is attached to any Sawyer robot, the robot will immediately recognize the type of end effector and how to control it, with no programming needed.

"Rethink Robotics' ClickSmart family of gripper kits is a game changer for manufacturers who want to deploy these robots more quickly. These grippers allow more flexibility to switch tooling between applications," said Phil Shaltz, President, Shaltz Automation.

For more information contact:

Rethink Robotics, Inc.

27-43 Wormwood St.

Boston, MA 02210

617-500-2487

www.rethinkrobotics.com

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