The pick & place vision system from Schubert

Schubert scanners are an integral part of the pick & place packaging machines: They enable the robots to “see” by always knowing exactly where each product is located and in what quality it was produced. Only those products that meet the quality criteria according to the specifications are packaged. For example, burnt or incomplete biscuits can be sorted out. Products that are too thick or too thin are also detected and sorted out.

Applications which, for example, require the use of cameras due to design or process conditions, such as reading characters, checking codes, labels and the like, are covered by the Schubert’s camera-based vision systems. The so-called “reach into the box” is also implemented with cameras: From a disordered stack of products, a robot retrieves individual products one after the other, the upper most ones first. After each retrieval, the product arrangement in the stack changes, as the products lying on top of each other and touching each other shift. Before the robot picks up the product again, the pick & place vision system must be able to take another 3D image of the entire scene, i.e. the new stacking constellation, generate a point cloud and precisely calculate the position of the next best product to be picked. For this purpose, several cameras and light pattern projectors are positioned at different viewing angles. The combination of their images results in a three-dimensional image of the products in the stack, from which the pick & place robot can pick up the next, best possible product. In contrast to the pick & place machines and packing lines, the vision system and the robots here inevitably use the same work area.

The wide range of possible applications and the precise adaptation of image processing to the requirements of packaging processes make Schubert’s vision system an exceptionally high-quality technology: It guides the robots precisely to safe and gentle product pick-up, gives the packaging robots a high degree of flexibility in handling a wide range of product assortments, and last but not least, it ensures reliable quality control, enabling manufacturers to increase their product quality in an extremely efficient manner.