Grippers are chosen for the part, not the robot. Parallel-jaw grippers are precise and good for machined components. Vacuum grippers dominate logistics because a flat cardboard or plastic surface is all they need, and an array of cups can pick different box sizes. Magnetic grippers handle sheet metal. Soft and bellows-style grippers deform around fruit, pastries or blister packs.
Key numbers are grip force, stroke or opening width, cycle time and whether the gripper can report what it is holding. Electric grippers can be told to close to 42 mm with 30 N; pneumatic ones are usually just open or closed.
Multi-finger robot hands with many joints appear on humanoid research platforms, but in production the simplest gripper that does the job usually wins on reliability.
