Robot handling and sequence optimisation of complex moulded optical quality parts

 

Moulded optical quality plastic parts were presented to the machine in transport trays (also custom designed by GBI) with significant freedom of movement for the product so as to not cause stresses during post mould cooling and stabilisation. How to pick these up and present them to the subsequent processes accurately?

 

GBI developed a special gripping mechanism to allow for the position tolerance of the product. The robot was programmed to pick each product in turn and how to deal with faulty or missing product or part full transport trays.

 

Faced with the need to be able to turn over and place product vertically on edge as well as horizontal a special 90 deg additional pneumatic axis was added between the end of the robot and the gripper. This provided an effective 180 rotation and turn over capability to the high speed Scara robot., without the complexity and reduced speed capability of other robot options. The robot also handled accurately placing of the product after finding the reference location into the subsequent processes. Retrieving them, placing and recording the temporary position used for product cooling prior to picking one up to place in the final process station of an indexing system.

 

GBI handled the complex tracking and planning for the products with sets of rules so that all parts of the machine were running at optimum efficiency with minimum delays for the multiple time critical operations.