Comparative analysis of pneumatic grippers for handling operations of crystalline solar cells

An efficient production technology is a key factor in decreasing total production costs. This is especially true within the highly dynamic and innovative renewable energy market, which relies on improvements in the production technology to remain competitive with conventional energy producers. This paper focuses on the production technology of crystalline solar cells and shows a comparison of pneumatic grippers for handling operations in the production process. The aim is to quantify the performance of different gripper types with respect to future challenges in solar cell manufacturing, such as thinner wafers. The investigations compares standard vacuum, vacuum area and Bernoulli grippers. In addition to a presentation of the effect principles of the different robot grippers, simulation results of the induced mechanical stress and displacement are examined. The experimental setup with the TRIGLIDE parallel robot and preliminary experimental results are shown.