Compendium

End-Effectors Zoo — Family Index

16 min read

End-Effectors Zoo — Family Index

The end-of-arm tooling (EOAT) is where the robot becomes useful. Arm vendors converge on a small set of mechanical interfaces (ISO 9409-1-50-4-M6 cobot flange, ISO 9409-1-A50 industrial; some Asian arms use proprietary flanges), but everything bolted to that flange spans an enormous design space. This index maps the landscape: gripper architectures, mounting hardware, and selection trade-offs.

1. At a glance

The major categories, ordered roughly by deployment volume in 2026:

  • Parallel-jaw 2-finger — workhorse for rigid-part pick-and-place. Pneumatic dominates industrial; electric dominates cobot.
  • 3-jaw centric chucks — cylindrical parts (shafts, bottles, gears, bearings).
  • Multi-finger dexterous hands — 3 to 5 fingers, 6 to 24 DoF, research and high-mix manipulation.
  • Suction / vacuum — sheet, box, parcel, glass, panel, electronics; the e-commerce induction default.
  • Magnetic — ferrous-only; permanent on/off, electromagnetic, electro-permanent.
  • Soft / inflatable / particle-jammed — fragile, irregular, deformable parts; food.
  • Multi-functional / anthropomorphic — research and emerging humanoid platforms.
  • Dedicated process tools — weld guns, paint guns, drills, screwdrivers, dispensers, deburring spindles.
  • Tool changers + ATC — for cells that need to swap end-effectors mid-cycle.

A typical Tier-1 automotive cell has 3 to 6 end-effector types across its robots; an e-commerce induction cell has 1 (suction). A research lab may have 20.

2. Parallel-jaw 2-finger

Far and away the most common gripper. Two fingers approach each other in synchronized linear motion (rack-and-pinion, ball-screw, or lever-actuated). Selection axes: actuation (pneumatic / electric), stroke, grip force, cycle time, and ingress protection.

Pneumatic — industrial workhorse

  • SMC MHL2 series — wide-stroke parallel; MHL2-10D to MHL2-40D; stroke 20-80 mm; force 30-300 N; IP65 with seal kit.
  • SMC MHL-LF — long-stroke variant, 80-180 mm.
  • Festo HGPL — long-stroke parallel; integrated guide; 10-40 mm stroke per side.
  • Festo HGPC — compact 3-point centric or 2-finger variants.
  • Schunk PGN-plus — the de-facto industrial reference. PGN-plus 40 through PGN-plus 380, stroke 4-43 mm/side, force 80-21300 N.
  • Schunk PGB — long-stroke universal, 100-200 mm.
  • Schunk PZN-plus — 3-finger centric (see §3) but built on the same backbone.
  • Schunk SVH-2 — 2-finger servo electric (bridges to §2.2).

Pneumatic advantages: high force-to-weight, fast cycle, robust to dust/coolant, no electrical heat, simple control (one solenoid valve). Disadvantages: binary or proportional only with regulator, compressed-air cost (typical 1-3 cents per cycle in plants without local generation), noise (80-95 dBA at the EOAT during release), slip detection requires external sensor, leak management on long runs of soft tubing.

Industrial conventions: 6 bar (90 psi) supply standard; pneumatic gripper force is roughly linear in pressure once above seal break-out. Most Schunk and SMC catalogs spec force at 6 bar; derate ~20% per bar below. Cycle time on a 25 mm-stroke pneumatic gripper is 100-200 ms each direction at full flow; restrictor-orifice tuning trades cycle time for impact softness on the part.

Electric — cobot default

  • Robotiq Hand-E — 50 mm stroke, 60-185 N adjustable, 4 kg payload, IP67; the cobot industry default.
  • Robotiq 2F-85 — 85 mm stroke, 20-235 N, 5 kg payload. Adaptive parallel-to-encompassing motion.
  • Robotiq 2F-140 — 140 mm stroke, 10-125 N, 2.5 kg payload.
  • Schunk EGP / EGP-C — 25-64 mm stroke, 6-490 N; EGP-C is the cobot-collaborative-rated version.
  • Schunk EGK — 80-160 mm long-stroke electric.
  • Schunk EGI — IO-Link integrated, position-controllable parallel.
  • OnRobot RG2 — 110 mm stroke, 3-40 N, 2 kg, UR+ plug-and-play.
  • OnRobot RG6 — 150 mm stroke, 25-120 N, 6 kg.
  • OnRobot 2FG7 — 70 mm stroke, 3-140 N, food-grade IP67.
  • OnRobot 2FG14 — 140 mm stroke, 14 kg payload, cleanroom variant.
  • ATI Industrial Gripper 100 / 200 — modular industrial line.
  • Soft Robotics electric 2-finger — compliance built into the finger pads.

Electric advantages: programmable force and position, no compressed air, force feedback for slip/drop, quiet, clean. Disadvantages: lower peak force per gram, slower cycle than pneumatic at high force, motor heat in long cycles.

Stroke spans 10-180 mm across the range; force 30-1000 N for industrial classes (some Schunk PGN-plus 380 hits 21 kN); cycle time 200-500 ms typical. Cobot ecosystems (UR+, Doosan Mate, Techman Plus, KUKA Sunrise.OS) treat parallel-jaws as their default EOAT.

3. 3-jaw centric chuck-style

Three jaws translate radially toward a common center. The natural choice for cylindrical or hexagonal parts since the part self-centers on closure.

  • Schunk PZN-plus — pneumatic 3-jaw centric, sizes 40-380, force 270-31200 N.
  • SMC MHS3 — 3-finger angular, smaller stroke.
  • Festo HGDS — 3-finger pneumatic.
  • Sommer-automatic GP-3 — modular 3-finger.

Common applications: bottle-handling on filling lines, shaft load/unload on lathes, gear assembly, bearing pick-and-place. The chuck-style geometry means the gripper does not need vision to center the part — the closure does the centering.

4. Multi-finger dexterous hands

Research-grade end-effectors with 9 to 24 actuated DoF, designed for human-like manipulation tasks: in-hand re-grasping, opening doors, using tools, manipulating deformable objects.

5-finger anthropomorphic

  • Shadow Dexterous Hand — Shadow Robot Company (UK). 20 actuated + 4 underactuated DoF, ~24 total joints, tendon-driven via pneumatic muscles or electric. The research-grade gold standard since 2005; used in OpenAI Rubik’s-cube manipulation work.
  • Allegro Hand — SimLab (Korea). 16 DoF (4 fingers + thumb, each 4 DoF), direct-drive electric. Affordable for academic labs; widely used in U.S. and EU robotics research.
  • Schunk SVH 5-finger — 9 actuated DoF, designed for safe collaborative manipulation; ROS-supported.
  • iCub hand — humanoid research platform, 5 fingers, 9 DoF, tendon-driven.
  • HRP-4 hand — AIST (Japan) humanoid hand, 6 DoF.
  • Adroit hand — legacy WonikRobotics (formerly Kinova Robotics’ research arm).
  • Sandia / Utah hand — legacy research platforms.
  • Tesla Optimus Hand — in-house 11-DoF hand, 22 DoF total per hand including underactuation, 2024 prototype targeting general manipulation.
  • Robotis OP-3 hand — research.

3-finger industrial / semi-dexterous

  • Robotiq 3F Adaptive — 3 fingers with 2 phalanges each plus an active palm finger-spread; ~10 DoF including underactuation; bridges industrial robustness and dexterous reconfiguration.
  • Barrett Hand BH8 — 3 fingers (4 DoF each) plus spread DoF; tendon-driven; long-standing research workhorse.
  • Salisbury Hand — Stanford / JPL legacy 3-finger, 9 DoF.

The split between “research” and “deployable” hands is real: Shadow and Allegro need a careful lab environment; Robotiq 3F is run in factories.

5. Suction / vacuum

Vacuum is the dominant gripper class for boxes, sheets, panels, glass, electronics, and parcels. The system has three parts: the cup, the vacuum generator, and the air-flow plumbing.

Vacuum cup / suction cup arrays

  • Schmalz FXP — flat universal cups.
  • Schmalz FMP — multi-bellows cups for irregular surfaces.
  • Schmalz SCG — silicone cups for hot or corrosive parts.
  • Schmalz Vacumat — area-cover universal pad for box handling and palletizing.
  • Piab VGC10 / VGC20 — modular area-cover with quick-change cup arrays.
  • Piab piCOMPACT-mini — integrated ejector and cup head.
  • FIPA — full pad and cup range.
  • ATI Industrial vacuum heads — modular.
  • Vac Tech, Anver, Coval — second-tier specialists.

Cup material selection:

  • NBR (nitrile) — general-purpose, good wear, ~70 °C max.
  • HNBR (hydrogenated nitrile) — oil and grease resistance for machined parts.
  • Silicone (SI / Q) — food-grade, chemical-resistant, ~200 °C max.
  • PUR (polyurethane) — sharp-edge tolerance, heavy parts, ~70 °C.
  • EPDM — high-temperature, ~150 °C, for hot castings.

Vacuum generators

  • Multi-stage Coanda ejector — compressed-air-driven, no moving parts, very high flow per unit air. Piab pi-MICRO / pi-MIDI, Schmalz SCM, Festo VN-series. Compact, mounted directly on the EOAT.
  • Venturi-tube single-stage — older, simpler, lower efficiency.
  • Electromechanical pumps — rotary-vane or diaphragm. Schmalz ECBPi battery-powered, integrated rotary-vane on cobots (Schunk JGP-P).

Cobot stacks increasingly use battery-electric vacuum (Schmalz ECBPi, OnRobot VG10) to eliminate compressed-air infrastructure from the cell.

Area-coverage micro-cell arrays

  • Soft Robotics mGrip — arrays of small compliant cups for food and e-commerce induction.
  • FlexShooter Vacuum Pad — high-cup-count pad for parcel handling.

The area-coverage idea: instead of locating one big cup precisely on the part, place a 4x4 grid of small cups and let the system tolerate placement error. Zoned vacuum (independently switched cup banks) lets a single head pick parts of varying size.

6. Magnetic

Ferromagnetic parts only (steel, iron — not aluminum, copper, stainless 304 in most cases).

  • Permanent magnet on/off — Magswitch MagJig, AR70 / AR125 / AR200. Rotating the activation lever realigns internal magnets to switch between hold and release. High force on ferrous flat steel (AR200 holds ~200 kg).
  • Electromagnetic — Walmag Magnetics, ROEMHELD, Schmalz MGS. Requires continuous current to hold; loses grip on power loss (safety: workpiece drops).
  • Electro-permanent (EPM) — Tecnomagnete, EOAT MAG, Goudsmit. Permanent magnets held in a switchable circuit; short electrical pulse to magnetize or demagnetize; magnet stays on without continuous power. Combines safety (holds on power loss) with switchability.

Applications: stamping-plant blank handling (load presses with steel sheets), scrap-metal handling (electromagnets on cranes), sheet-metal palletizing in white-goods and auto BIW, billet handling in forges. Force scales with contact area and magnetic flux; surface flatness and air gap dominate hold force.

7. Soft / compliant grippers

A 2010s research wave produced a now-deployable class of grippers for fragile, irregular, or deformable objects.

Pneumatic-elastomer

  • Soft Robotics mGrip / mGripAi — 4 to 6 silicone fingers per gripper, finger bends around the part on pressurization. Food-grade and washdown variants for poultry, produce, baked goods.
  • Festo BionicSoftHand — research-direction 5-finger pneumatic-elastomer hand.
  • OnRobot Soft Gripper — 3 silicone cups for fragile parts on cobots.

Particle jamming

  • Empire Robotics VERSABALL (legacy) — granular medium in a soft membrane; pressing the membrane against a part conforms the medium, then vacuum hardens the medium into a rigid grip (“jamming”). Releases on atmospheric pressure.

Tendon-driven soft

  • Pneubotics (now Otherlab) — large-scale soft inflatable manipulators.
  • Soft Robotics — tendon-driven variants.
  • Festo BionicSoftHand 2.0 — hybrid pneumatic + tendon.

Electrohydraulic / HASEL

  • Artimus Robotics (Boulder, CO) — HASEL (Hydraulically Amplified Self-healing ELectrostatic) actuators, hydraulic-electrostatic hybrid; high force-to-weight, silent.
  • Disney / Princeton research — academic HASEL designs.

Origami / kirigami

  • MIT Magic Ball gripper (MIT + Stanford collaboration) — origami-fold cone-of-cups that closes around an arbitrary part; rated for fragile and irregular geometries.

Soft grippers trade peak force and cycle speed for compliance and forgiveness — exactly the right trade for produce, bakery, poultry, fragile electronics, and reconfigurable assembly.

8. Specialty / niche grippers

  • Needle / pin grippers — fine needles deploy through soft material (textile, foam, leather) for pick-up; Festo HGPM is the reference product. Used on automotive headliner stacks, mattress assembly, upholstery.
  • Bernoulli grippers — non-contact: high-velocity air flow over a flat surface creates low pressure (Bernoulli’s principle), pulling the part toward the gripper without touching it. Festo SLG, Coval LEMcup, FIPA. For silicon wafers, OLED glass, thin-film electronics, optical lenses.
  • Gecko grippers — Stanford-spinout, now OnRobot Gecko SP1. Dry-adhesive microfibers (inspired by gecko setae) grip smooth surfaces without suction or magnetism. Glass, mirrors, solar panels.
  • Electrostatic grippers — Grabit Inc. Electrostatic charge across thin film attracts non-conductive sheet material. Fabric, paper, packaging films.
  • Cryogenic grippers — Marel, FoodLine. Freeze a thin layer of part surface to the gripper; release by warming. Used for boneless poultry and irregular meat products where suction and mechanical jaws fail.
  • Needle grippers for textiles — Festo HGPM (also listed above), used penetration-style on textile and foam stacks.

These exist because every general-purpose gripper fails on some specific material class.

9. Tool-side dedicated end-effectors

Process tools mounted on robot arms instead of grippers. The robot is now a manipulator for a process, not a pick-and-place machine.

  • Spot-weld gun — Comau, ARO / DeStaCo, Yaskawa AEM. Pneumatic or servo-electric. Auto BIW (Body-in-White) consumes thousands of these.
  • Arc-weld torch — Bug-O Systems, Cloos, Lincoln, Miller. Air-cooled or water-cooled MIG / TIG / FCAW torches.
  • MIG torch + wire-feeder — Lincoln Power Wave, ESAB Aristo. Integrated wire feed.
  • Paint spray — Sames Kremlin, Graco ProMix, Behr. Atomizers (rotary or air-spray) with high-voltage electrostatic for transfer efficiency.
  • Adhesive dispenser — Nordson EFD, Graco PrecisionSwirl. Bead, swirl, spray, or jet patterns.
  • Drill spindle — FAR / Atlas Copco, Ferdimat, ETP. High-speed (10-30 krpm) with depth control.
  • Screwdriver — Atlas Copco IxB, Bosch NEXO. Servo-controlled torque and angle.
  • Riveter — HUCK, Cherry, Atlas Copco. Squeeze rivet, blind rivet, lockbolt installation.
  • Deburring — 3M Roloc, Schunk RAH 8, Pferd brush. Compliant or non-compliant deburring spindles.
  • Grinder — Bosch, Pferd, SUHNER. Higher-power than deburring, often with compliance for surface following.
  • Polish — Schunk OPH. Compliance + speed control.
  • Peening — Sumitomo, Curtiss-Wright laser-peen. Shot-peening or laser-peen for surface compressive stress.
  • Camera / vision-end-of-arm — Cognex In-Sight, Keyence IV, with custom mounting plates. Robot becomes a pose-controlled inspection station.
  • Syringe / pipette — Hamilton and Tecan lab automation. Microliter dispensing.
  • Scalpel + needle-driver — Intuitive Surgical da Vinci EndoWrist. Proprietary cable-driven articulated instruments.

These end-effectors are typically heavier and require more services (water, gas, wire, power) than pick-and-place grippers, driving cable management and dress-pack design at the wrist.

10. Tool changers / quick-change

For cells where one robot needs to use multiple end-effectors during a cycle, or where end-effectors must be swapped for changeover.

Pneumatic robot tool changers

  • ATI QC series — QC-11 (3 kg payload) through QC-360 (1300 kg). The industry default. Pneumatic locking via piston, with electrical and pneumatic pass-throughs.
  • Schunk SWS / SCS — SWS-005 to SWS-310. Comparable performance to ATI.
  • Stäubli RAB — European alternative.
  • OnRobot Quick Changer — cobot-class, lightweight.

A tool changer adds 0.1-2 kg of dead mass to the wrist and ~20-50 mm of stack height. It also adds a pneumatic latch failure mode — backup mechanical or vacuum hold is sometimes specified.

Robot-side tool magazines

  • Comau, ABB FlexTool — robot picks up tools from a parking station.
  • MAKINO machining-center ATC — 40+ tool automatic tool changer; the spindle picks tools from a chain or carousel.

Cobot accessories ecosystems

  • Universal Robots UR+ — certified third-party EOAT and accessories.
  • Doosan Mate — Doosan’s equivalent.
  • Techman Plus — Techman’s.
  • KUKA Sunrise.OS — KUKA iiwa partner ecosystem.

These ecosystems matter because plug-and-play certification removes integration days from a deployment.

11. F/T sensor mounting

Force/torque (F/T) sensors mount between the robot flange and the tool plate to give the controller closed-loop force or impedance feedback during contact tasks (assembly, polishing, deburring, hand-guiding).

  • Robotiq FT300 — cobot-class 6-axis F/T, ~300 N range.
  • ATI Mini40 / Mini45 / Gamma / Theta / Omega — industrial 6-axis F/T, ranges from 20 N (Mini) to 5000 N (Omega).

The F/T sensor adds 20-100 mm of stack height and 0.2-2 kg of mass at the wrist, both of which subtract from useful payload and increase moment arms — design accordingly.

12. Bin-picking + e-commerce induction end-effectors

The 2020-2026 wave of warehouse and induction automation has driven a specific EOAT pattern: a suction head as the primary picker, with optional auxiliary parallel-jaw or compliant gripper for items that suction cannot handle (e.g., loose poly bags, mesh, dust-coated).

  • Pickit — vision + EOAT integration.
  • Universal Logic Neocortex Velocity — bin-pick software paired with multiple EOAT.
  • Soft Robotics mGrip 6 — 6-finger compliant for produce induction.
  • Plus One Robotics — vision + suction-EOAT induction systems.
  • Berkshire Grey Robotic Picker — proprietary multi-cup suction with zoned vacuum.
  • Ambi Robotics AmbiSort — sort-induction robot.
  • Symbotic AmbiSort — Symbotic’s variant.
  • Sparrow — Amazon’s internal induction robot.
  • Pickle Robot Co. — unloading EOAT for truck-trailers.

Common pattern: 1-4 suction cups on a compliant mount, zoned vacuum for variable part size, pressure-drop sensing for pick-confirmation, and fallback to a different EOAT (parallel-jaw or soft) on suction-fail retry.

13. EOAT design checklist

Before ordering an end-effector, check:

  • Payload sum — part mass + tool mass + F/T sensor mass + cable/connector mass. Compare to robot rated payload at the operating reach.
  • Moment arm to flange — most arm payload ratings degrade with center-of-mass distance from the flange. A 5 kg part at 300 mm overhang can violate a 10 kg arm rating.
  • Cycle-rate vacuum or pneumatic flow — vacuum cycle time depends on cup volume and ejector flow; sizing the ejector matters.
  • Gripper-stroke vs part-tolerance — finger stroke must exceed part dimensional tolerance plus approach error plus part-presentation error.
  • Cleanroom rating — ISO class 5/6/7/8 for semiconductor, biotech.
  • Food-grade — FDA / EHEDG / 3-A compliance, washdown rating.
  • ESD-safe — for electronics handling.
  • ATEX / Class I Div 1 / Zone 1 — for explosive atmospheres (paint booths, solvent areas).
  • Gripping force adequacy with safety margin — typical 2-4x dynamic + gravity load.
  • Slip + drop risk — acceleration-induced slip, especially on high-cycle pick-and-place; coefficient of friction and force margin govern.

14. Selection heuristics

Quick guide from task → EOAT:

  • Pick-and-place rigid parts on cobot → parallel-jaw electric (Robotiq Hand-E for compact, 2F-85 for general).
  • Pick-and-place rigid parts industrial → pneumatic Schunk PGN-plus.
  • CNC machine-tend load/unload of chuck part → 2-finger long-stroke (180 mm) — Schunk EGK, OnRobot 2FG14, or Schunk PGB pneumatic.
  • Bin-pick e-commerce parcel → suction cup head with 3-zone vacuum + occasional parallel-jaw or soft auxiliary.
  • Food poultry / produce / bakery → compliant soft gripper (Soft Robotics mGrip food-grade).
  • Fragile fruit / vegetables → vacuum with food-grade NBR cups + low-flow + high cup-density.
  • Cleanroom optical assembly → vacuum micro-cups, sometimes Bernoulli for ultra-thin glass.
  • Sheet-metal palletizing → magnetic + suction combo (magnets for primary, suction for non-ferrous or coated).
  • Auto BIW spot weld → ARO welding gun + cooling-water lines + dress-pack.
  • Auto trim painting → Sames Inobell rotary atomizer with HV electrostatic.
  • Surgical → da Vinci EndoWrist family (proprietary closed ecosystem).
  • Flexible cable / textile / foam → needle gripper or pin-array.
  • Ferrous scrap → electromagnet sized to 100-1000 kg hold.
  • Cellulose / paper / fabric stacks → electrostatic (Grabit).
  • High-IP unstructured grasp research → Shadow Hand + tactile sensors, or Allegro + GelSight, or Tesla Optimus 11-DoF for humanoid platforms.
  • Boneless poultry / wet meat → cryogenic Marel or Soft Robotics mGripAi.
  • Wafer / OLED panel handling → Bernoulli or vacuum + EUV-clean materials.
  • Solar panel install → gecko (OnRobot Gecko SP1) or large suction pad.

15. Cross-references

16. Citations

  • Robotiq Application Engineering Manual — Hand-E, 2F-85, 2F-140 product specifications and selection guide.
  • Schunk Gripper Selection Guide — PGN-plus, PZN-plus, EGP, EGK product catalog and force/stroke charts.
  • OnRobot Catalog 2025 — RG2, RG6, 2FG7, 2FG14, Gecko SP1, VG10 product line.
  • Schmalz Pneumatic Vacuum Handbook — cup selection, generator selection, multi-stage Coanda ejector theory.
  • Piab Vacuum Selection Guide — VGC10, piCOMPACT-mini, suction-array zoning.
  • Shadow Robot Dexterous Hand technical specifications — 24-DoF tendon-driven anthropomorphic hand.
  • Allegro Hand user manual — SimLab 16-DoF research hand specifications.
  • ATI Industrial Robot Tool Changer guide — QC-series sizing, electrical and pneumatic pass-through options.

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