Students: Luis de Santiago, Paula de la Hoz, Thomas van der Sluijs, Daan Boekestijn, Okay Uǧurlu. (2024)
HADIVO ANNOUNCES ROBOT ARM TO PUT JARS INTO BOXES TO AUTOMATE PRODUCTION LINE
The new robot arm reduces the amount of working hours needed during the week.
Delft, Netherlands – November 13, 2024
The new robot arm is built to pick up full jars and place them into an already folded box. It is part of a packaging system that puts the jars in the boxes.
The problem with the current situation is that there are always at least two people needed on the production line. One for pushing the jars onto the conveyor belt and putting the lids on top of the jars and one for folding boxes and putting jars inside of them.
Furthermore, the task of putting jars inside of boxes is really repetitive and requires a lot from the workers physical and mental health. In addition to this, the environment at the workplace is very noisy, employees are standing next to machines and moving parts which always brings risks.
It is important to take into consideration that the production line is limited to expansion. A person can handle the current production speed but in the case the company expands, there is yet another person needed to continue with the production.
For the implementation of the project, the customers need to have a conveyor belt for boxes, and a box erector for the boxes, and another conveyor belt for the jars.
Once the program is started, an interface for calibration will be displayed. After having everything calibrated, a menu to select the type of box that is going to be filled will be shown. Then the conveyor will start and place the box into position. The robot will fill the box with the jars and once it has finished, a camera will take a picture and process it using AI to count how many jars are in the box. In case a jar is missing, the box will be pushed into a rejection zone where it can be checked. If not, it will get closed and ready for delivery.
With this solution, an employee to fill the boxes won’t be needed. Besides, the repetitive work will be done by a robot and not a human anymore. The company will reduce the risks of getting a worker injured and will improve their employees mental and pyshical health. Additionally, production will be able to increase the speed and fill the boxes faster than a human which will bring more profits to the company.
“We wanted to automate the packing of the jars so we could have one person less in te production. This machine is quick enough to keep up the speed and also checks the quality of the packaging. I’m very happy with the result.” – Tom van Leeuwen (Director at Hadivo)
Solution
On the one hand, for the software part, a program on Python was created. This program runs on a UP Board which connects to the UR5 Robot using a socket. Thanks to this socket, information can be sent and received between the two devices.
In the python program, a set of interfaces were designed to guarantee easy and efficient usage. The first two interfaces are used to calibrate both the reference points for jars and boxes.
Lastly, an interface to select the box that will be used in the production line was implemented.
On the other hand, for the hardware part, in order to keep up with the production line speed, it was decided that having a 3D printed piece that could hold 4 jars at the same time instead of just one will be helpful. Using SolidWorks a piece that holds 4 vacuum cups was designed.
To guarantee quality in every single box, computer vision was used. A YOLO model was trained to detect the jars on each box and count them so the program would know if there were any missing jars or if they were not placed in their designated spot. If this is the case, the program will trigger a cylinder to push the box out of the production line when a sensor is activated.
A barrier to stop the boxes from moving while they are getting filled was created. For the first prototype, the barrier was made out of wood and opened up using a servo. Because of the pressure the boxes made against it the wooden barrier was not opening correctly. In order to overcome this issue, a metal barrier was created to replace the wood one.
This barrier holds boxes in place while the robot is filling it with jars. Once the robot is finished and the picture is taken and analyzed, the barrier opens to let the box continue its journey.
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