Learning and recreating from the grip of a gecko
Schöneich joined INM in 2017. At the time, the team had more than a decade of high-level, award-winning scientific research emulating the gecko adhesion effect. He and his team will tell you geckos are amazing: They can climb the steepest walls (of any texture—wet, rough, slippery) and walk upside down on a ceiling. Geckos use adhesion forces that exist from tiny hairs on their feet and the surface they’re navigating. This is the van der Waals interaction, intermolecular interactions that occur between two polarizable molecules.
Schöneich’s job at INM was a dream for him: to find applications for this research. For two years, he traveled the world, assessed, and refined products that applied the gecko adhesion effect, aligned with interested companies, and discovered the need to spin out from INM and create a new company that could bring this technology to industry. This was the birth of INNOCISE.
The INNOCISE difference
As Schöneich worked, he found hurdles to overcome; you cannot simply copy nature. Nature is always ahead of and more advanced than human development. The best we can do is try to understand nature and appropriately re-engineer the effects. This is what INNOCISE does: it reengineers the adhesion technique and tailors it to specific applications. Schöneich’s main outlook of “what can it do?” has shifted slightly to “what do you need to do with it?”
This approach is core to the INNOCISE business model. They find ways to integrate and customize the technology into a customer’s process. The result is the development of many different grippers (sometimes tailor-made) of special polymers that can be integrated into different automation units with varying handling needs in both micro- and macro-handling.
For instance, grippers are often used in the fingertip of a robot. Robots handling microscopic components in optics, photonics, and electronics do especially well with INNOCISE grippers, because Schöneich and his team noticed these sensitive parts require care and precision, but traditional handling methods often break or damage pieces with gripping that is too forceful or leaves a residue. These observations led to the micro-handling arm of the business.
Schöneich also noticed a need for macro-handling. Traditional compressed air suctioning leads to a loss of energy. Engineering with this in mind, INNOCISE designed grippers for production plants to handle large but demanding components that are uneven in shape or are sensitive materials, such as automotive batteries or fuel cell components.
Thanks to Schöneich’s eye on application, new grippers continue to emerge as demand arises and the company evolves.
Going gecko green
INNOCISE’s grippers are changing the manufacturing landscape to be more sustainable. Because their grippers hold components without vacuum, magnetism, or pneumatics, the energy needed to grip is significantly reduced, and so is its CO2 footprint and noise emission.
Robots and assembly parts still need to move, but Schöneich is very conscious about how they are created and where they end up at the end of their lifecycle. Similar to a bottle-and-coin return, INNOCISE encourages customers to recycle the plastic parts into an ejection modeling machine to be reused.
Advice for up-and-comers
Schöneich made a mark for himself and INNOCISE by remaining curious and identifying ways to solve problems by watching natural elements at play. His career was formed through a confidence in ideas and following them.
His first piece of advice for other scientists and engineers looking to make their mark? Never lose sight of the application. Always keep the end goal, customer, and business case in mind. At the same time, he also encourages young leaders not to be afraid of mistakes; he firmly believes failure helps guide your path forward.
And perhaps the hardest lesson for Schöneich? Everything takes time and will not go as fast or smoothly as desired. He says to keep trying because if the passion and drive are there, the results will come.
What’s next?
Schöneich has never been driven by money, titles, or prestige. He simply wants to create something great and useful. He learned that to do so, he needs a strong team. This has resulted in a wonderful company culture, and Schöneich says the best days at INNOCISE are when the team is happy with themselves, their efforts, and their outcomes. This is the key: A happy team and positive company spirit.