The Bionic Handling Assistant: a success story of additive manufacturing

Purpose - This review will describe the development of the Bionic Handling Assistant as well as the additive manufacturing (AM) process of robot grippers and its possibilities. Design/methodology/approach - AM offers the chance to use the additive processes to produce highly flexible automation parts and systems as the Bionic Handling Assistant in small and medium quantities that can utilize a lot of design advantages provided by the process. Findings - A lot of products of today and especially tomorrow could be produced by rapid manufacturing. New categories of products, such as the Bionic Handling Assistant, will occur. Originality/value - In the paper, aspects of a visionary scenario for future productions are shown and demonstrated on the Bionic Handling Assistant.