SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT Machine Visiony
3D vision for highly-reliable bin picking in process automation
A
s factory automation advances and the labour market changes, there are new pressures put on factory and manufacturing
organisations to increase fl exibility, reduce risks and improve margins. This has gained worldwide attention with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The world watched as manufacturing transformed to meet changing demands. And, automation professionals are looking for better ways to adapt their factories to address these challenges in similar situations in the future.
Stability, certainty and flexibility Orders are no longer stable, and production plans are not certain. How can manufacturers improve margins when market changes can quickly disrupt planning?
Flexibility is key. It is paramount to be able to switch production quickly, for example changing a beer plant into a sanitiser production plant within a week. Or starting to produce ventilators using car parts. How can this fl exibility be achieved? A new level of health and safety
requirements also needs to be implemented. How can health risks be reduced? Almost 40% of the manual labour in a factory is spent moving components that arrive at the factory in bins and boxes to feed the machines for the next production step. Some manufacturers have automated this with conventional feeders. Unfortunately, these are expensive, noisy, cannot be retrofi tted and require a lot of attention from employees. Other manufacturers have introduced pick-and-place robots, but operators still must spend a lot of time staging parts in a structured way in front of a robot. Yet, there is a third group of automation
professionals who take a diff erent approach to automating machine tending. These professionals already use robots and want to have more fl exibility in producing smaller quantities of a wider range of products. In addition, they want to teach robots to deal with new components on the factory fl oor – without the need for technical experts.
This is the classic example of a Pickit customer.
12 September 2020 | Automation Pickit solutions
Pickit 3D was founded in 2016 to solve the challenges created by machine tending. Machine tending involves feeding parts to a production machine, where orientation and position are of crucial importance. The performance of the application is measured not only by cycle time, but also by the position and the orientation accuracy when the part is placed by the robot. This company saw the potential to simplify process automation with a single product – a 3D vision system for pick-and- place robots. Pickit guides robots to pick parts directly out of the bin, box, pallet or conveyor, and place them with the required orientation into a machine. Changeover happens with a push of a button: instead of taking up space in a factory storing diff erent jigs, fi xtures and feeders, it is now possible to simply store the vision algorithms on a PC. 3D vision algorithms require complex calculations and iterations to detect parts in a scattered bin. All Pickit software comes pre-installed on a powerful industrial processor from Advantech. Pickit is leading developments in the market of 3D vision guided robotics, with software updates released every three months. Pickit fi rst reached out to Advantech because this system requires a higher core CPU with enough threads to deal with the information brought by the Pickit 3D camera. As the company continues to evolve the solution toward artifi cial intelligence, greater power is required. The Advantech processor is a trusted partner for Pickit’s solution. “We used to fi nish 400 units a day with six people in a high-pressure environment. After automating with Pickit, we now easily fi nish 1000 units with only three people, who are experiencing less pressure and are generally happier,” said Managing Director Roelof Talen of Talen Tools, who wants his employees to be content, but also wants to see objective results, too.
The big advantage of 3D vision is its
fl exibility; it solves applications with overlapping parts that vary in shape and size. The system can be taught to detect and handle a wide variety of objects. Fast changeovers are made easy – when one part is done with, the empty bin is simply removed and replaced with a new bin containing the next product.
Pickit guides robots to pick parts directly out of the bin, box, pallet or conveyor and place them with the required orientation into a machine.
Advantech processor As many Pickit customers confi rm, they use 3D cameras to reduce the need for human labour while increasing output. Pickit chose an Advantech processor to support its customer benefi ts. The processor is preinstalled and ready-to-use, which saves installation and setup time. Advantech’s standard products are available globally, which cuts costs by using an off -the-shelf product, and its compact design helps remove bulky and space-taking fi xtures. Pickit customers can worry less about 24/7
reliability due to the Advantech fi eld-proven industrial design and global support. Advantech is a leading brand in IoT intelligent systems, Industry 4.0, machine automation, embedding computing, embedded systems and transportation. It off ers over 1,000 products and solutions, and delivers fast time-to-market services to its worldwide customers.
CONTACT:
Advantech
www.advantech.com
automationmagazine.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46
