Machine Vision in the
Consumer Goods Industry
RTS Cheos specialises in flexible robotics, machine vision integration and importation of retail products. The company represents many well-known manufacturers supplying cameras, hardware, software, optics, light sources and accessories.
New solution in the machine vision field With long experience and unequalled expertise, RTS Cheos has developed a new solution in the Machine Vision field. RTS PixCell´ is a modular robot cell solution for concurrent quality control and material handling in a production line process. Difficult and slow manual production is history Nowadays the consumer goods industry is becoming an increasingly important field for automation. Until now, automation has been very difficult due to the demands of quality inspection combined with the soft materials involved, rapid cycle times, large volumes, etc. At present there is a large amount of manual work in different phases of manufacturing and in many cases this work poses the risk of personal injury. The influence of monotonous tasks, coupled frequently with low temperatures, especially in food industry is a common cause of repetitive strain injuries. This leads to increased labour costs and recruitment difficulties. Robot manufacturers are developing new types of robots, which can fulfil these cycle time and material handling requirements. In order to enable the picking of items from a continuously moving conveyor, which is normally the case, the position of the item must be accurately known. In the metal industry this is usually solved using mechanical fixtures or fixed pallet positions. However, this cannot be done in food industry. One of the problems involved in the consumer goods industry is the handling of soft material products without causing damage. Rapid production does not allow sufficient time for product quality inspection and the simultaneous careful picking of products from a conveyor. As a result of this, a manual work phase is often required. The most flexible solution to this problem lies in the use of a robot, equipped with and intelligent vision system and high speed communication interfaces. Machine vision solution speeds up the production process RTS Cheos has developed the VIP (Vision Integration Platform) concept, which includes all the hardware and software components required for vision guided robot applications. The concept also includes an Ethernet interface for robots and sample robot programs. The pilot project was undertaken together with ABB Flexible Automation Centre Finland between December/98 and March/99. Since this pilot project, the system has been successfully utilised in numerous applications world wide. The latest version of the VIP™-Robot Guidance system also includes quality inspection features. Together with the ABB FlexPicker robot, the system is capable of performing up to 140 picking and placing cycles per minute.
A typical RTS PixCell™ application includes the following components:
RTS Cheos is a member of the international Robotic Technology Systems PLC (RTS) Group. RTS comprises a group of strategically linked international companies serving a blue chip to global clientele. RTS provides robotic automation and system integration to telecommunication, electronics, machine vision and nuclear technology sectors. Contact: RTS Cheos Ltd
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