Tyre maker Bridgestone Corporation says that it has commenced a Proof of Concept (PoC) for using soft-robot hands to automatically perform piece-picking, the process of picking and transporting individual items, at logistics sites.
Bridgestone adds its soft-robotics business is a new challenge in its diversified products business area to support safe mobility and movement of people and objects. Capitalising on its core competencies “mastering rubber” and “mastering road contact,” and leveraging its tyres and hoses development and production know-how, Bridgestone says it is developing rubber actuators (artificial rubber muscles) to explore new business models for commercialisation. Bridgestone’s rubber actuators feature flexibility, impact resistance, light weight and high power, it adds.
Utilising these characteristics, the company thereby aims to help address social and customer issues such as labour shortages and demand for non-contact interactions through automation of various tasks that currently require human hands, with soft-robot arms and hands.
In July 2022, Bridgestone commenced a PoC together with wholesalers of daily necessities and various items, robot manufacturers, and other partners in which soft-robot hands equipped with Bridgestone rubber actuators are used to automate piece-picking processes in logistics warehouses.
It is difficult for a single conventional robot to pick up objects with various shapes, levels of rigidity, and weights, such as tubes, bottles, and pouches, therefore automatic piece-picking using robots is a demanding problem. A single soft-robot hand equipped with Bridgestone’s rubber actuators, meanwhile, is able to achieve “just the right” grip of various objects.
The company adds it will continue to move forward with PoC together with its partners in pursuit of the quick practical application of soft-robot hands for logistics piece-picking applications.
Bridgestone says it has positioned the recycling business, soft-robotics business, and guayule business as exploratory businesses and is exploring technology and business models in new fields where its core competencies can be leveraged to achieve sustainable future growth.
Moreover, the company says it seeks to foster entrepreneurs through new undertakings and the exploratory businesses are areas where talent with entrepreneurial spirit come together.
In the soft-robotics business as well, talent ambitious in creating a new business from zero are swiftly advancing projects unbound by past conventions as an internal venture with the goal of quickly commercialising the soft-robotics business.