Handling of irregular-sized mailpieces by adaptive robotics

Singulation is the term used by the US Postal Service to denote the removal of a single mailpiece from a stream, stack, or heap of mailpieces. To expedite the singulation of irregular items, a system for singulating overlapping mailpieces from a moving conveyor at 36 pieces/min with more than 95% efficiency has been developed. The system uses range imaging to guide an AdeptOne robot in removing the parcels from the moving conveyor. >