American Robot Technologies, Inc. appointed system integrator for Cognex Vision Systems

Citation

(1998), "American Robot Technologies, Inc. appointed system integrator for Cognex Vision Systems", Industrial Robot, Vol. 25 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.1998.04925dab.003

American Robot Technologies, Inc. appointed system integrator for Cognex Vision Systems

American Robot Technologies, Inc. appointed system integrator for Cognex Vision Systems

Keywords AR, Architecture, Computers, Robots

American Robot Technologies, Inc. (AR), formerly Robotic Workspace Technologies, Inc. (the result of the merger with American Robot Corp. announced in January of this year), and Cognex Corporation have signed an agreement by which AR will integrate Cognex vision systems into its Universal Robot Controller^tm (URC) for use in robotic applications. American Robot Technologies recently introduced the revolutionary new PC-based, Windows NT open architecture Universal Robot Controller. The URC can be ordered on new robots or it can be retrofitted to any robot to gain the price/performance advantages of the PC/Windows platform.

A distinct advantage of the PC/Windows open architecture platform is "plug-and-play" compatibility with peripherals like Cognex vision systems. During integration trials with the Universal Robot Controller, the Cognex Checkpoint 900C vision system was installed and up and running in less than one hour. "That's clearly a major advantage of our platform," comments Wait Weisel, President of American Robot Technologies. "We simply plugged the Cognex Checkpoint 900C processor card into the URC backplane, loaded the Cognex software onto the URC master computer via its standard CD-drive, and voilà, our robot could see!"

The Universal Robot Controller uses two Intel Pentium processors. One computer is completely dedicated to the real-time motion control of the robot and workcell components such as conveyors, positioners, or automated fixturing devices. The other computer runs under Windows NT and serves as the operator interface to the robot, as the robot programming platform, and also supports other application software such as the Cognex vision system, robot process simulation software, scheduling and other manufacturing software packages. Because robot motion control tasks are isolated from Windows NT tasks, there is no performance degradation as each computer executes its assigned tasks independently. In addition, the dual processor configuration allows the robot to respond to information from the vision system in real-time.

"We believe this combining of vision and robotic technologies, integrated on a single platform, provides manufacturers using robots a cost-effective opportunity to dramatically improve the accuracy of robot guidance in a wide range of applications," says Kris Nelson, Cognex Corporation's Vice President of North American Sales. "This single source availability for a robot controller with Cognex's integrated vision will also enable new robotic automation solutions for tasks such as in-line inspection, test, and assembly. We believe this ease of integration will expand the use of vision in a wide range of applications."

"Several of our customers are retrofitting existing robots with the Universal Robot Controller and then redeploying them in place, or in upstream or downstream processes to cost-effectively increase the use of robotic automation on the factory floor," explains Mr Weisel. "By specifying the URC with a Cognex vision system, these robots can easily be programmed to identify and locate part features. With integrated vision, manufacturers can reduce fixturing costs, accomplish in-line inspection, and complete a wide variety of other tasks that previously were done with hard automation or manually," according to Mr Weisel.

For more information contact: Sandra L. Brooks, American Robot Technologies, Inc., 17105 San Carlos Blvd, Suite A6151, Fort Myers Beach, FL 33931-5336, USA. Tel: +1 (941) 466-0488; Fax: +1 (941) 466-7270; E-mail: info@rwt.com ; URL: www.rwt.com