cool robot, how does it work?

[damae]

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

Machine vision, as it's called, is some amazing stuff, to be sure. I did some design work (years ago) on a machine that floated potato chips on a cushion of air as they moved along through the machine. Any chip that was burnt or otherwise out of spec was detected in real time and the computer calculated the exact right moment to fire an air nozzle, which knocked the offending potato chip out of the air, mid flight! The potato chips moved along through the machine in constant projectile flight!

Then again, the mechanics of the robot are pretty impressive even without the machine vision!

[epineh]

All I want to know is what sort of machine makes the croissants and who the hell needs so many croissants?

And Damae, that sounds like SOME specialized machine, would make for some interesting reading in a resume.

Russell.

[widgitmaster]

The thing I find most impressive is the slender arms, they have such limited weight which allows for rapid movement with less enertia to cause positioning problems!

In the early 80's I worked for a company that made robotic sub stations for electronic component placement in circuit boards. The guys who were writing the software worked around the clock to get all the optical character recognition routines to recognize the color bars on resistors, their diameters for wattage, and such. My job was to make the end effectors and grippers so that the robot arm could change ends for various tasks.

The robot units were so massive, when the arm swung around 15°, the entire base would slide on the floor! We had to ancor it with 16 bolts into the concrete to keep it stationary!

All though it was not the best paying job I have ever had, it was fun to watch the machines in action!

Now I'm hungry from looking at all those croissants!
Eric

[nikolatesla20]

Hi guys, machine vision is basically a bunch of graphics operations, for example, first the image is put thru a guassian filter, then they find the edges - for this they can use an algorithm known as the "Canny operator" which detects all edges and makes them one pixel wide. Now the computer knows the location of each object, then I imagine what it's doing is adding up all the pixels of a certain color in each region, and if over a certain number if grabs the part (the crossiant). The gripper itself appears to be just suction with a cage to make sure it has only one crossaint. Really, with a good computer this is not a difficult algorithm to implement, it's mainly the tuning that takes time.

-niko

[diarmaid]

Thats cool yet freaky....attack of the crazy robot insects!!

[Sheldon]

The machines you see are called delta robots. They are pretty cool. They are capable of 50 gee's(?) of acceleration.

[Sheldon]

They are called delta robots (because of their configuration). They are capable of 50 gee's(?) in labratory settings.

[Trapper14]

sheldon, you mean G's? as in gravity?

[spider]

kinda sad......another 20 years and everybody is gona be out of a job. Even the checkout girls.