With the increasingly strict global requirements for food safety and poultry health supervision, poultry egg production enterprises are facing severe challenges in the automated inspection and packaging processes. A leading poultry egg production enterprise originally used vacuum suction arm-type mechanical hands for egg and duck egg grasping and tray loading operations, but during long-term use, it exposed several difficult-to-overcome defects.
Customer pain points: Limitations of traditional automation solutions
The "invisible damage" of egg shells and hygiene risks are a pair of twin problems of the traditional solution. The concentrated stress from vacuum suction will aggravate the micro-cracks of the egg shell, causing invisible internal damage and increasing losses; its potential debris also exacerbated the blockage and contamination risks of the suction pipe, leading to frequent maintenance. Moreover, in response to the size fluctuations of 44mm-73.5mm of poultry eggs, the vacuum suction arm's adaptive ability is poor, often requiring machine shutdown for parameter adjustment, seriously hindering the production rhythm and the smoothness of the automated production line.
At the same time, the close contact required in the adsorption process makes it a medium for the spread of bacteria and contaminants between egg products, laying a hidden danger for food safety.
Technical solution: Bionic flexible grasping principle
Facing these challenges, SRT developed a flexible end effector based on soft robotics technology, providing an ideal solution. This technology is derived from bionics principles, simulating the gentle grasping action of the human hand, achieving wrapped grasping of poultry eggs.
Unlike traditional vacuum suction arms, the flexible gripper applies uniform inclusive pressure, achieving stable grasping with only a "fingertip" area of minimal size. This not only fundamentally avoids cross-contamination caused by vacuum suction but also uses safe materials that comply with FDA certification, making it easier to thoroughly clean and disinfect, building a multi-dimensional hygiene safety barrier.
In terms of adaptability, a single flexible gripper can stably grasp poultry eggs with diameters ranging from 44mm to 73.5mm without any hardware replacement. Its flexible adaptive characteristic effectively avoids stress concentration, even for egg products with minor surface flaws, significantly reducing the breakage rate caused by grasping.
Implementation effect: Comprehensive improvement in production efficiency and safety
After implementing the flexible grasping technology, the customer has achieved significant improvements in multiple dimensions:
Efficiency: The product breakage rate has been significantly reduced, directly saving costs. The size compatibility has enabled the flexible production capacity of a single equipment to handle multiple varieties of poultry eggs. The production rhythm remains smooth and stable, without the need to adjust parameters due to changes in product size.
In terms of operation and maintenance, due to the absence of wear parts and low system energy consumption, long-term operating costs and downtime have been significantly reduced. At the same time, thanks to the extremely small contact area of the gripper fingers and the food-grade material that is easy to clean and disinfect, the risk of cross-contamination caused by the grasping tool has been greatly reduced, ensuring food safety.
Technical universality: From egg grasping to more application scenarios
The flexible grasping technology applied in this case has wide applicability. Whether it is the SFG flexible gripper or the MVG vacuum gripper, they are all flexible end effectors developed based on natural bionics principles and soft robotics technology, capable of providing the most suitable solutions for different application scenarios and requirements.
The value of this technology is not limited to egg grasping; it is also applicable to the automated processing of fragile items such as fruits, vegetables, and baked goods, and has broad application prospects in food processing, agricultural product sorting, and logistics packaging.
In today's food industry with continuously improving automation and safety standards, technological innovation is redefining the boundaries of production processes. The flexible grasping technology, through bionics design, not only achieves a breakthrough in comprehensive efficiency in the poultry egg packaging field but also provides a reliable technical path for the automation upgrade of the entire food processing industry. SRT believes that truly valuable technological solutions should not only meet the current production needs, but also leave room for the future evolution of the industry. This is precisely the technical philosophy that SRT has implemented in the case of automated egg picking and packaging.