Abstract
In modern assembly lines, one of the most relevant issues is the automatic part feeding. This task consists in the separation of parts delivered in bulk and their presentation in a certain amount and orientation at the pick-up location. The traditional vibratory bowl feeder can no longer be adopted for the modern plants which require high velocity and increasing flexibility. In this paper, several types of feeders have been indentified and the Ars FlexiBowl has been classified as one of the most innovative. In order to take full advantage from this rotating feeder, a proper path planning technique is proposed for a generic manipulator. Such an approach consists mainly of two algorithms: one for prediction of moving part position, and one for circular conveyor tracking. These algorithms can be implemented into the robot control unit by exploiting the internal trajectory planner. This strategy has been implemented into an Adept robotic workcell, which has been adopted as an experimental setup. Such an application proves the usefulness of the proposed algorithms.
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Boschetti, G. A Picking Strategy for Circular Conveyor Tracking. J Intell Robot Syst 81, 241–255 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-015-0242-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-015-0242-y