Robot technology with image sensor
For a well-known logistics service provider in Marseille, mainly active in the (petro)chemical industry, TBMA has supplied an installation for fully automatic quick and direct loading of bulk trucks. A robot places 25kg bags with emulsion PVC powder on a conveyor belt, that transports the bags to a Galahad full-automatic bag slitting and emptying machine. This way a single operator can load a 25ton truck in approximately one hour.
Two full pallets with bags are placed at the pick-up point of the robot before the operator starts the line. The robot is equipped with an image sensor to determine the correct position of the pallet and the bags. Using these coordinates to control the robot arm, the bags are put on the conveyor belt. This way, less well stacked or shifted pallets can also be processed without any problems. The robot as well as the conveyor belt are shielded for the operator’s safety.
By using special vacuum technology, the bags are lifted one by one and put on the belt. This technology also ensures that the bags are securely sucked in, resulting in only a small loss. The conveyor belt transports the bags into the Galahad, where they are cut open and emptied. After being sifted, the product is loaded into the truck through a loading chute with a dust-tight connection. All empty bags are then compressed and discarded. When the first pallet is empty, the robot automatically moves on to the second pallet. The operator then replaces the empty pallet with a full one.
The robot can be equipped with a single-head or multi-head. The single-head takes a single 25 kg bag at a time and has a maximum capacity of 500 bags or 12,5 tons per hour. A multi-head can pick up a complete layer of 5 bags in one go, which allows a capacity up to 1.000 bags or 25 tons / hour. For both versions, the system can be operated by one person, making the ROI very interesting.
