Robotics

Designed a large machine featuring two robots: one 6-axis and one SCARA. Each robot had its own dedicated vision system and flexible feeding system. Hoppers containing parts would deposit their respective parts on the two flexible feeding platforms. The platforms would then shake or move until the cameras found parts that could be picked up and placed by the robots.

The operation required not only high precision, but high accuracy as well. The parts had to be aligned and positioned correctly on the platform, meaning the pickup action of the robot had to be well understood. We used transformation matrices to calculate the correct position and alignment for each product number.

Some of the parts had features protruding from them, so they would naturally sit at an angle on the feeding platform. The exact orientation of each natural resting position was calculated beforehand and added to the position found by the vision system, so that the robot could approach at the correct angle and position to pick up each type of part. In the end, the machine could run all day unattended.