Picked up and put off
Autonomously driving robotic assistance system for the automated placement of coil creels
16
Due to the industry standard 4.0 , digitalisation , automation and networking of systems and facilities are becoming the predominant topics in production and thus also in logistics . Industry 4.0 pursues the increasing optimisation of processes and workflows in favour of productivity and flexibility and thus the saving of time and costs . Robotic systems have become the driving force for automating processes . Through the Internet of Things ( IoT ), robots are becoming increasingly sensitive , autonomous , mobile and easier to operate . More and more they are becoming an everyday helper in factories and warehouses . Intelligent imaging techniques are playing an increasingly important role in this .
To meet the growing demands in scaling and changing production environments towards fully automated and intelligently networked production , the company ONTEC Automation GmbH from Naila in Bavaria has developed an autonomously driving robotic assistance system . The “ Smart Robot Assistant ” uses the synergies of mobility and automation : it consists of a powerful and efficient intralogistics platform , a flexible robot arm and a robust 3D stereo camera system from the Ensenso N series by IDS Imaging Development Systems GmbH .
The solution is versatile and takes over monotonous , weighty set-up and placement tasks , for example . The autonomous transport system is suitable for floor-level lifting of Euro pallets up to container or industrial format as well as mesh pallets in various sizes with a maximum load of up to 1,200 kilograms . For a customer in the textile industry , the AGV ( Automated Guided Vehicle ) is used for the automated loading of coil creels . For this purpose , it picks up pallets with yarn spools , transports them to the designated creel and loads it for further processing . Using a specially developed gripper system , up to 1000 yarn packages per 8-hour shift are picked up and pushed onto a mandrel of the creel . The sizing scheme and the position of the coils are captured by an Ensenso 3D camera ( N45 series ) installed on the gripper arm .
APPLICATION
Pallets loaded with industrial yarn spools are picked up from the floor of a predefined storage place and transported to the creel location . There , the gripper positions itself vertically above the pallet . An image trigger is sent to the Ensenso 3D camera from the N45 series , triggered by the in-house software ONTEC SPSComm .
It networks with the vehicle ’ s PLC and can thus read out and pass on data . In the application , SPSComm controls the communication between the software parts of the vehicle , gripper and camera . This way , the camera knows when the vehicle and the grabber are in position to take a picture . This takes an image and passes on a point cloud to a software solution from ONTEC based on the standard HALCON software , which reports the coordinates of the coils on the pallet to the robot .
The robot can then accurately pick up the coils and process them further . As soon as the gripper has cleared a layer of the yarn spools , the Ensenso