Project introduction:
Automated ‘batch size 1’ particle board handling system in furniture production. An industrial robot takes care of the depalletization of wood particle boards laid out in layers on top of each other.
The boards are placed in the machine’s feeder and after processing, the robot arranges them in layers on a pallet. The order of each layer in the output palette differs from the order in the input and depends on the size and position of the previous layer.
A specially designed end-of-arm tool (EOAT) with individually controlled suction cup groups ensures reliable gripping and feeding of boards with different geometries and orientations in the processed layer.
Project details:
The activities of loading and unloading boards in edging machines are often served by personnel with lower qualifications due to the high cyclical nature of the actions.
Based on the limits of board sizes imposed by the technical capabilities of the edging machine and the conveyors serving it, a prototype of a gripper using groups of vacuum suction cups was designed and created. The number of active vacuum groups changes dynamically depending on the dimensions, geometry and mass of the board. The processing of each layer of boards on the input pallet begins with a scan to determine its height, then its elements and their position are identified! The software and system responsible for cutting and arranging the elements on the pallet provide information about its arrangement in each layer. The industrial robot configures the gripper’s suction cups to the dimensions and position of the current board and carefully picks it up from the pile and places it in the machine’s feeder. The processed boards are returned on a conveyor and, depending on the part information, the robot reloads them into the machine or arranges them on the output pallet.
Taking or placing a board in the current layer should not change the position of other elements in it. Since the order of the layers of the input palette does not correspond directly to the order of the layers of the output palette, the use of buffers is necessary.