Improvement of the Robotic Workplace to Prevent a Collision

In the serial production of air filters for the truck brake system, an important operation is to pick and place four emptied boxes of semi-finished products from the assembly space. This, due to the prescribed production cycle, must be done in one step. These emptied boxes cannot be locked and it is therefore not possible to define the position in advance. It is necessary to implement a specialized camera system. This system must reveal the different positions and shapes of these boxes. The current high demand for production cycle and the restriction of the robot’s movement is the reason for scanning only one box from said four vision system. This can lead to dangerous collisions between the robot’s gripper and the pick-up boxes. The article deals with the improvement of the robotic workplace so as to avoid the mentioned collisions. The modifications consist in supplementing the workplace with optical inspection gates, implementation of a special algorithm in the robot system, superior control system of the production line and HMI visualization. The whole update is carried out with regard to the high safety standards and requirements of the automotive industry.