Major breakthrough in robotic pick and place applications

Citation

(1999), "Major breakthrough in robotic pick and place applications", Industrial Robot, Vol. 26 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.1999.04926ead.007

Major breakthrough in robotic pick and place applications

Major breakthrough in robotic pick and place applications

Keywords Robots, Handling, Machine vision

The RTS Group is pleased to announce the launch of a new, revolutionary machine vision application tool - "RTS-VIP". Utilising RTS's "Pi Vision PP" software, the "RTS-VIP" (Vision Integration Platform) has been designed for robotic pick and place applications (see Plate 6). The system works in conjunction with most common robot controllers and has been successfully used with the ABB FlexPicker robot and conveyor tracking.

Plate 6 RTS-VIP has been designed for robotic pick and place applications

Building on the Group's robotic and machine vision expertise "RTS-VIP" can be utilised throughout industry for a wide range of materials handling applications. Automatically determining location and orientation, the system is suitable for an almost infinite number of picking applications and can even be used in situations where components overlap. Provided with an integrated ethernet connection, "RTS-VIP" can operate in high speed production environments with cycle times of less than one second. The major benefits of "RTS-VIP" are speed and flexibility.

The "RTS-VIP" package includes: an integrated robot interface and a selection of sample robot programs. The start-up time for each application is very short and all necessary hardware components including the PC and frame grabber are provided. All components are installed in a compact housing.

One application of the "RTS-VIP" system working in conjunction with an ABB FlexPicker robot can be seen at a cheese manufacturing plant in Finland. Here, the ABB FlexPicker robot is guided by the "RTS-VIP" software to pick pieces of cheese from a moving conveyor (see Plate 7). Imaging is triggered using sensor information. The vision system measures the position and orientation of the pieces of cheese on the conveyor and transfers this information, via an ethernet connection, to the robot. The robot simultaneously traces the parts using an encoder connected to the conveyor which moves at a speed of 300mm/s. The cycle-time of the robot is 0.85 second and the system has two similar picking stations connected to the one vision system.

Plate 7 The ABB FlexPicker robot is guided by the RTS-VIP software to pick pieces of cheese from a moving conveyor

RTS-VIP can be used in four different types of material handling application:

1. 1.

   Locating parts from a fixed pallet or box.

2. 2.

   Locating parts from stacks.

3. 3.

   Locating parts on a stepping conveyor.

4. 4.

   Locating parts on a high-speed conveyor.

For further information, please contact Susan Jones, RTS Thurnall PLC, Northbank Industrial Park, Irlam, Manchester M44 5AY. Tel: +44 (0)161 777 2000; Fax: +44 (0)161 777 2002; E-mail: sue.jones@rtsthurnall.co.uk