Gently Grasping Irregular and Fragile Food. Custom Robot Hand for the Physical AI Era to be Unveiled at FOOMA JAPAN

Thinker Inc. (Headquarters: Osaka City, Osaka; Representative Director and CEO: Hiromichi Fujimoto; hereinafter 'Thinker'), which aims to realize robots that can be used as easily as home appliances, will exhibit at 'FOOMA JAPAN 2026,' held at Tokyo Big Sight from June 2 (Tue) to June 5 (Fri), 2026. Based on the robot hand 'Think Hand F,' the company will unveil a custom-developed demo machine that combines edge AI and soft materials to gently handle irregular and soft objects such as food. In food manufacturing sites, objects have inconsistent shapes and placements, and food has unique handling difficulties such as being easily crushed, slippery, or easily damaged. Therefore, automation by robots in processes such as picking, transferring, aligning, and pre-packaging is difficult, and many tasks remain dependent on human labor. The demo machine to be unveiled this time is custom-developed based on the robot hand 'Think Hand F' for food handling. By having the fingers capture the state of the object, such as its shape and softness, it demonstrates the possibility of a robot hand that 'handles gently' according to individual differences in objects, rather than just trying to grasp them. Thinker has been working on technology development to stably handle objects with variations in the field using robot hand technology that utilizes proximity sensors. In this exhibition, through a demo using food, you can see the new possibilities of robot hand technology that can handle soft and irregular objects. Thinker will continue to develop robot hands, sensing, and control technologies that meet on-site challenges, and support the automation and labor-saving of tasks that have relied on human labor.