Placing pieces of nougat on trays

Initial situation


Finished pieces of nougat are supplied unsorted on a transport belt. The articles come either wrapped from the wrapping machine or unwrapped from the frosting machine. 


Task


The pieces of nougat are to be packed in blister packs and then fed to a cartoner: 

  • Aligning and placing in a blister pack
  • The blister pack is provided via the system.

Equipment

Brief description of the system


Four independent IRB 360 flexpickers are the heart of the system. Each flexpicker is coupled with a tray destacker, which takes empty blister packs from a magazine and provides them to the flexpicker [A] [B] [C] [D]. The pieces of nougat are supplied on a transport belt [E] which takes them through the system. Once the blisters are filled, they are pushed onto a separate transport belt. This transport belt takes them to a cartoner.
 

 

Filling the trays using flexpickers


Each of the robots [1] picks up one piece of nougat – independently of the other pickers – from the transport belt [E], turns it around its vertical axis if necessary and puts it in a blister pack [2b]. The stacks of blister packs are put in the tray destacker [3] manually by an operator but automatically separated and provided to the filling station. The flexpicker is provided with single blister packs [2c]. When the blister pack is full [2a], it is pushed out [4] onto the transport belt [F] that takes it away. Before the filled blister packs are passed to the subsequent cartoner, a fully automated quality check is conducted [G]. Packages that are not satisfactory are ejected. 

Image recognition for positioning and orientation


Each filling station is fitted with a separate camera. It detects the position and orientation of each piece on the line. This image information is passed on to the corresponding flexpicker, so that it can grab a piece of nougat properly, turn it round and place it in the blister pack. 

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Version: dev