Line Tracking Pick and Place with FANUC SR-6iA SCARA Robot, courtesy of Interactive Design

Line Tracking Pick and Place FANUC's Authorized System Integrator, Interactive Design engineered and designed a flexible line tracking system for picking cotton swabs off of a conveyor and placing them onto a tray. Swabs are located using FANUC iRVision, which can locate the swabs in any orientation. Conveyor encoders relay the speed of the parts to the FANUC SR-6iA robot for accurate picks. Swabs are picked at 75 parts per minute, which can be increased based on the orientation of each piece. A more uniform orientation can result in higher pick and place speeds, while a random orientation may slow pick speeds, but allow for greater flexibility in how the swabs are introduced into the system. Swabs are conveyed to the robot pick area A machine vision camera acquires images of the swab The image is communicated to the FANUC iRVision software The vision software communicates the part position information to the robot The robot picks the swab from the conveyor and loads it onto the fixtures of the outgoing conveyor (the second conveyor is simulating a packaging machine or other type of equipment) Both the infeed and outfeed conveyors have encoders, which enable the robot to pick from a moving conveyor and place on a moving conveyor The system shown in the video shows the robot picking and placing approximately 75 parts per minute. Higher throughput is possible with different setups. Parts can be presented more randomly than shown, they can even be presented in completely different orientations…however, this will affect the throughput of the system as shown in the video. To learn more about Interactive Design, visit: interactivedesign.com