Inside the Robotic Hand That Can Pick Up a Polybag

Key points

• Locus Robotics acquired Nexera Robotics, a Vancouver-based startup, to add its NeuraGrasp soft-gripping technology to the Array mobile robot.
• Array launched in March 2025 with a standard suction-cup gripper; the next public appearance of the robot will likely feature NeuraGrasp technology, according to Locus.
• Standard suction grippers handle roughly 60 to 70 percent of warehouse items well; soft grippers like NeuraGrasp are designed to close the remaining gap.
• Locus executives say pick quality, not speed, is their first priority, pointing to product damage and missed picks as hidden costs that rarely appear in competitor marketing.
• Two problems still slow the whole industry: AI intelligence that lags behind the physical hardware, and touch sensors that wear out quickly.

Picture a warehouse worker reaching into a bin and pulling out a floppy polybag, a crinkled cloth item, or a small container with an awkward shape. Easy for a human. Genuinely hard for a robot.

That is the problem Locus Robotics is trying to solve.

What did Locus actually buy, and why?

Locus acquired Nexera Robotics, a Vancouver, Canada-based company, to get its hands, literally, on NeuraGrasp, a soft-gripping system that uses both suction and pinching together. Nexera had been refining the technology through at least six product generations before the deal.

Roy Belak, Locus's senior vice president of robotic grasping and Nexera's former chief executive, told The Robot Report that the two companies met at MODEX, a major supply-chain trade show, in 2025. Timing mattered. Locus was preparing its Array robot, an autonomous mobile robot fitted with a vision-guided picking arm, for early customer deployments. Array already carried an air supply and power connections that NeuraGrasp needed, which made slotting in the new gripper far simpler than it might have been.

"I think if we had missed that window by another year, it probably would have been really hard to make those changes," Belak said.

Why does grip style matter so much?

Suction cups, the kind used on most warehouse robots today, are fast and dependable. According to Belak, suction handles 60 to 70 percent of typical warehouse items without trouble. The problem is the other 30 to 40 percent: porous polybags let air escape, cloth items have no flat surface to seal against, and some small containers are simply too light or too odd-shaped.

NeuraGrasp addresses this by combining suction with a pinching motion, using soft, flexible ends that can conform to irregular shapes. Think of the difference between a toilet plunger and a human hand. Both can grab things, but one adapts.

Belak is clear that suction is not going away. "If it ain't broke, you don't throw it away," he said. NeuraGrasp is meant to extend what Array can handle, not replace a system that already works most of the time.

Should warehouse operators care about speed or quality first?

Quality first, then speed. That is Locus's stated position, and it is a pointed one.

Belak argues that the industry has focused too much on picks-per-hour figures while understating damage rates, double picks (accidentally grabbing two items), and misspicks (grabbing the wrong item). Each of those errors costs money quietly, without appearing in a headline specification.

"There's a big differentiation between being able to do something, and being able to do the same tasks with high quality," he said.

What is still holding robotic picking back?

Two things, by Belak's account. First, the AI software that tells a robot hand how to grip an unfamiliar object has not kept pace with the physical hardware. Second, touch sensors, which let a robot feel whether it has a secure grip, tend to degrade quickly in real-world use and are difficult to replicate with simulated training data.

"There is one piece of the physical system which is missing, which is the sense of touch," Belak said. NeuraGrasp does include some touch sensing, and Locus says it plans to develop that capability further.

For the people who work in or run warehouses, the practical takeaway is straightforward: robotic picking is getting better at handling the awkward items that previously needed a human hand, but it is not there yet across the full range of products. Locus expects Array to appear publicly with NeuraGrasp technology at its next trade-show appearance.

Common questions

Will this technology replace warehouse workers?

Locus positions Array as a tool to handle higher volumes of product types, not to eliminate staff. The company's existing autonomous mobile robots have assisted with over 6 billion picks alongside human workers rather than replacing them outright.

What is a soft gripper, exactly?

A soft gripper is a robotic hand built from flexible materials, rather than rigid metal or plastic, so it can wrap around or pinch objects with irregular shapes without crushing them. NeuraGrasp combines that flexibility with suction to cover a wider range of items than either approach alone.

When will NeuraGrasp be available to Locus customers?

Locus has not given a firm date. Belak said the next public demonstration of Array will likely feature the technology, and current early deployments still use the original suction gripper.