Gantry robot

Picture a small bridge built over a workspace. The tool — a gripper, a socket driver, a camera — rides along that bridge and the bridge itself rides along rails, so the tool can reach any point above the area beneath it.

PitPro’s tire system uses two coordinated gantries inside one service bay, so tools can reach all four wheel positions of a car parked on the platform. A gantry is a natural fit here because the car always stops in roughly the same place and the work area is a predictable rectangle.

The trade-off versus a jointed robot arm: a gantry is stiffer and more accurate over its area, but it cannot be wheeled somewhere else on a whim. It is furniture, not a tool.