German pneumatic and electric drive systems pioneer, active in soft robotics and humanoid actuator research.
Festo occupies an unusual place in robotics: part industrial supplier, part research demonstrator. Its importance is not in selling one iconic robot platform, but in repeatedly turning bionics, compliant actuation, and soft-robotics ideas into components and concepts that influence broader automation and robotics design.
At the 2025 World Robot Conference, Festo highlighted a new bionic bee, gripper systems for robot end effectors, and Festo AX software based on AI. The presentation showed how the company continues linking bionics research with practical robotics tooling and industrial automation software.
Festo is a German automation company known for pneumatic, electric, and motion-control systems as well as long-running bionics and robotics research. Founded in 1925, the company has become relevant to robotics not just as an industrial supplier, but as a steady generator of soft-robotics, gripper, mobile-assistance, and human-robot collaboration concepts.
Festo was founded in 1925 in Esslingen, Germany, and has since grown into a global family-owned automation company. That long industrial base later gave it the scale to invest heavily in both core automation products and bionics-driven robotics research.
Through the Bionic Learning Network, Festo developed concepts such as the BionicMotionRobot and BionicMobileAssistant to explore safe, flexible, and human-collaborative robot systems. The company uses these projects to translate biological principles into practical automation and robotics ideas.
At the 2025 World Robot Conference, Festo highlighted a new bionic bee, gripper systems for robot end effectors, and Festo AX software based on AI. The presentation showed how the company continues linking bionics research with practical robotics tooling and industrial automation software.
