cool robot, how does it work?

[keebler303]

check this robot out.
http://library.abb.com/GLOBAL/SCOT/s...%20Mildred.mpg
how does it know where the croissants are? it even knows if they are slightly off angle on the conveyor.

Matt

[Sanghera]

That's such a cool machine. There is probably some sort of camera system which can detect the orientation. I have seen this on other systems like this on tv. Only these ones built engines. They had a robotic arm and the camera would detect and locate certain points on say the engine block. The machine would be able to pick and place a part exactly lined up. I'm not sure how it works, but it is pretty cool.

[vacpress]

ha. ABB. that is so swedish...

i 'lived' in ABB's home town, vasteras for 8 months last year.. i had no idea they made those nifty guys though...

[keithorr]

here is a link to a longer version:

http://www.qcomptech.com/flexsys/ass.../Mildred-1.wmv

Machine vision determines the location. An older version of this video even showed the burnt ones being kicked off the line into a bin.

[ImanCarrot]

Wow! that is pretty neat. If I was in charge I would HAVE to put all the little croisants sideways to see what happened lol

[ynneb]

Did you notice the many rows of those machines in the background. Surely that could have been done a lot easier with less complicated methods.

[ImanCarrot]

Hehe I was thinking the same thing. You could have had 6 or 8 "lane" dividers running the length of the convayor with rollers underneath- curve them round and they would auto feed into the single lane feeders that the robots put them on. In fact if you tilted them then it would gravity feed too! less lectricity, less moving parts and probably faster

The Sales Team for those robots must have a very convincing strategy lol. It's still pretty cool though.

[keebler303]

it seems to actually sort the croissants. i don't think that would be possible with lane dividers. it seems to pick randomly but it probably uses the color of the brown top to sort them.

Matt

[Switcher]

Do you think the robots have names, like maybe Laverne or Shirley ?

Those are very cool robots, I had to play it frame by frame in media player, just so my brain could keep up with them.






.

[cwdance1]

I have to agree that there must me some reason for sorting them. Other wise they would just put in lanes or tables to turn them. They are cool to watch but I bet they are a pain to work on.

[damae]

I've seen those machines in person at a machine show a few years ago. Really impressive! They were just moving parts from one conveyer to another so that the parts traveled in an infinite loop. Sounds boring, but there were people standing around for 15 minutes at a time, just staring at it!

[ViperTX]

So, what they rely on is pattern recognition......any anomaly in a pattern is a rejection.....