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Pin design for part feeding

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2001

Mike Tao Zhang
Affiliation:
Dept. of Industrial Eng. & Operations Research, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-1777 (USA)
Ken Goldberg
Affiliation:
Dept. of Industrial Eng. & Operations Research, and Dept. of Electrical Eng. & Computer Science, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-1777 (USA)
Gordon Smith
Affiliation:
Dept. of Mechanical Eng., University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-1740 (USA)
Robert-Paul Beretty
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Campus Box 3175, Sitterson Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3175 (USA)
Mark Overmars
Affiliation:
Dept. of Computer Science, Utrecht University, 3508 TB Utrecht (The Netherlands)

Abstract

Industrial parts can be fed (oriented) using a sequence of fixed horizontal pins to topple the parts as they move past on a conveyor belt. We give an algorithm for designing a sequence of such pins for a given part. Given the n-sided convex polygonal projection of a part, its center of mass and frictional coefficients, our O(n2) algorithm computes the toppling graph, a new data structure that explicitly represents the mechanics of toppling, rolling, and jamming. We verify the toppling graph analysis with experiments. Our O(n3n) design algorithm uses the toppling graph to design a sequence of pin locations that will cause the part to emerge in a unique orientation or to determine that no such sequence exists.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

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