The award was presented during the Hannover Messe Opening Ceremony on 23 April by Germany’s Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel and Minister for Education and Research, Johanna Wanka.
The Hermes Award is one of the world’s most prestigious industrial technology awards.
The Hermes Award judges were impressed by Schunk’s JL1 co-act gripper, which is an intelligent modular gripping system for human-robot collaboration that is capable of directly interacting and communicating with its human operator.
Dr Jochen Köckler, the Deutsche Messe managing board member in charge of Hannover Messe, said: “The company’s award-winning solution supports human-robot collaboration, making it a vital part of the smart factory tool kit. It is therefore a perfect fit for Hannover Messe, which this year will once again play a key role in reflecting and driving the ongoing development of Industry 4.0.”
Dr Wolfgang Wahlster, chief executive of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence and head of the judges, added: “Safe and barrier-free human-robot collaboration in Industry 4.0 manufacturing operations with small production runs, high component diversity and frequent retooling is only possible if every part of the manufacturing system is intelligent, right down to the end effector level. Schunk’s JL1 is a perfect example of a state-of-the-art, smart end effector, which is why the jury has chosen it as this year’s winning entry.”
On her tour of the exhibition on Monday, Chancellor Merkel visited the Schunk booth, and looked on while they presented the smart gripping modules that enable direct human/robot collaboration.
Henrik A. Schunk, managing partner and chief of the family-owned company, said: “My team and I are proud of the success of the Schunk JL1 Co-act Gripper, which is a decisive step on the way to highly flexible handling scenarios for Industry 4.0 and therefore for smart production.”
