Bin Picking Advancements
25 October 2011 Motion Controls Robotics, Inc.
(Excerpted from recent FANUC newsletter)
Random part picking from bins is one of those applications that are easily recognized as a great opportunity for automation, especially given the large number of products and items that are loosely stored in a wide array of containers - from boxes, to racks and bins.
When reviewing a robotic application, there are several critical parameters, or things that need to be considered. These include;
cycle time requirements (both short term and sustained),
tooling and picking strategy (especially for fully random part positions), and
error recovery should the tooling hang up on a part.
These parameters, along with the vision imaging, all need to be thought through in order for the bin picking application to be successful.
Keep in mind that for even the most well designed fully random part picking application, it is likely that less than 100% of the parts in the container can be located and picked. For most applications, however, 95%+ is certainly doable.
FANUC Robotics continues to invest in the interesting application area of bin picking random parts, and continues to add new innovative software features like Smart Search vision process and Candidate Manager for faster part selection determination.
Motion Controls Robotics, Inc. welcomes the opportunity to work with you to review your application. Please let us know if we can help.