Robotic transfer system for hot and cold product handling

A food processing equipment builder needed to transfer product between a hot, wet infeed stage and a chilled outbound stage without manual handling, requiring grippers suited to two very different environmental conditions within the same cycle.

We designed a two-axis transfer system (servo-driven on the horizontal axis, pneumatic on the vertical) with dual, purpose-built grippers: one for hot, inflated, wet product and one for cold, shrunk, wet product. The sequence is timed so one tooling head loads fresh product into an empty tray while a second head simultaneously pulls chilled product from the preceding tray in sync with the moving conveyor. The system includes a control cabinet with PLC and HMI, a dedicated sensor system for motion coordination, and a pneumatic manifold for process control.

Product now transfers automatically between the hot infeed and chilled discharge in one continuous cycle, removing a manual handling step between the two stages.