It's around a year since SCHUNK was honored at HANNOVER MESSE 2017 with the HERMES AWARD for the Co-act JL1 gripper - the world’'s first intelligent gripper able to interact and communicate directly with people. This global leader in gripping systems and clamping technology is now at HANNOVER MESSE 2018 to unveil the new SCHUNK Co-act EGP-C gripper - the first inherently safe industrial gripper, which has been certified to ISO/TS 15066 and approved by the German Social Accident Insurance Association (DGUV) for collaborative use. At the same time, SCHUNK is establishing "Co-act" (collaborative actuator) as a new brand name for its gripper technology range for safe human-robot collaboration.

Grippers of the future should be intelligent, compact, easy to use and mechanically powered. "Even though pneumatic components will continue to play an important role, the trend is clearly moving towards mechatronics," says Henrik A. Schunk, managing partner of SCHUNK GmbH & CO. KG. "The digital transformation of industrial production requires networked interaction between all components, especially in handling and assembly. At the leading world trade fair for industry, we'll be showing how broad the spectrum of mechatronic gripping already is, how easy it is now to use the smart modules and what opportunities they offer for process monitoring closest to the part, i.e. directly on the workpiece."