Market Application Background
SCARA robotic flexible loading and unloading systems are benefiting from the continued growth in automation demand in fields such as 3C electronics, semiconductors, lithium batteries, photovoltaics, food, and medical. These systems improve production efficiency and accuracy, reduce operating costs, have good size and material adaptability, and can quickly complete material changes, optimizing production processes, thus driving their widespread application in these fields.
Limitations of traditional automatic loading and unloading systems:
• Low flexibility: Bowl-type vibratory feeders are usually designed for specific products and have poor adaptability to changes in size and shape, making them prone to jamming.
• Speed and efficiency limitations: In scenarios requiring high-speed production, it is easily limited by issues such as the speed and efficiency of mechanical design, vision processing, and motion control data interaction, making it impossible to meet the needs of high-volume production lines or rapid material changeover production.
• Complex system integration: It involves multiple components such as robots, vision systems, control systems, and feeding systems. Differences in protocols and data formats between devices may lead to compatibility issues and increase the debugging cycle.
• Poor data flow: Older systems may not support real-time data processing or remote monitoring, creating information silos that limit the implementation of smart manufacturing and prevent seamless integration with MES systems.
High cost issues: Multiple sets of hardware need to be purchased, and the market costs of personnel and maintenance remain high, increasing the company's operating costs.
Positive motion technology solutions:
In response to market demand, ZhengMotion has developed a flexible loading and unloading solution for SCARA robots based on the VPLC series vision motion control all-in-one machine and RTFuse fast configuration software. By combining point teaching and RTFuse fast configuration, it can realize one-stop and rapid development of loading and unloading equipment, effectively shortening the project cycle, reducing operation and maintenance and labor costs, and improving enterprise revenue and production line automation level.
The solution can flexibly adapt to materials of various sizes, specifications, and materials. By simply adjusting the parameters of the vision and motion control modules, operators can complete material transfer in the shortest possible time, enabling high-speed and high-precision robotic arms to flexibly load and unload materials. This effectively eliminates material jamming problems, significantly improves data processing speed, simplifies production processes, and reduces manual intervention.
It is suitable for various scenarios requiring flexible material supply, such as the development of tray loading machines, laminating machines, food and medical packaging, assembly and sorting.
01. Solution for flexible loading and unloading of SCARA robotic arms using machine vision and motion control integrated machine
SCARA robotic arm flexible loading and unloading processing schematic diagram
Design of Flexible Loading and Unloading Solution for SCARA Robotic Arm
·20DI: Connects to origin, limit, and other sensors, as well as switch signals, encoders, etc.
·20DO: High-speed output port for connecting to hard-trigger input of industrial cameras and dispensing valves.
• EtherCAT interface: Connects to the EtherCAT bus driver to control the movement of other axes.
• 4-channel single-ended pulse output: Connects to a pulse driver to control the conveyor belt.
• RS232 communication interface: connected to the light source controller
• Ethernet interface: Gigabit Ethernet port, for connecting area scan cameras supporting the Gigabit protocol to achieve visual positioning and detection applications.
Communication with flexible vibratory feeder
The Zhengdong SCARA robot's flexible loading and unloading solution supports multiple flexible vibratory feeder communication protocols.
The vibratory feeder is equipped with a network port, RS232/485 interface and I/O signal interface, supporting Modbus-TCP and Modbus-RTU communication.
This solution utilizes a flexible vibratory feeder with I/O signal triggering for communication and operation. Operators can adjust the flexible vibratory feeder to achieve the desired vibration effect using the parameter adjustment software provided by the manufacturer.
01. Implementation Process of Motion Control and Machine Vision
(1) Motion control
First, the vibratory feeder is triggered by I/O to vibrate rapidly, ensuring even distribution of the material within the feeder. After the upper camera captures and processes the material, the SCARA robot moves along a preset path based on the processed visual data, achieving precise point-to-point motion control. The robot performs the following operations sequentially: material gripping, secondary imaging, and unloading. Throughout the process, the control system adjusts the speed of each joint of the robot in real time to achieve a smoother motion trajectory.
(2) Machine vision
During the flexible loading and unloading process of the SCARA robot, the machine vision system first uses a shape matching tool to coarsely locate multiple materials on the tray. Then, through coordinate coefficient calibration, the world coordinates of the materials are transmitted to the robot for grasping. Subsequently, the materials are moved sequentially to the lower camera position for visual imaging, and secondary positioning is performed to correct the position. This facilitates the SCARA robot to reach the unloading area and complete precise unloading, improving positioning accuracy to meet customer needs.
02. SCARA Robot Arm Flexible Loading and Unloading Configuration Process
03. Core Application Advantages of the Solution
• Highly integrated: Integrates rich IO control, 30+ robot algorithms, machine vision and motion control, communication and other functional modules, enabling flexible construction of motion control + vision integrated robotic arm flexible vibration loading and unloading solutions.
• Easy debugging and fast delivery: Engineers can quickly develop projects without programming, simply by adjusting parameters using tools. This shortens project cycles, increases data processing speed, and allows for rapid assessment of potential risks in new projects, resulting in higher efficiency.
• Improved system flexibility: Enables rapid line/material changes without complex mechanical disassembly and assembly processes. Parameters can be easily reconfigured to adapt to changes in production plans. Suitable for feeding various small, scattered parts.
High precision: The vision system identifies the material position, eliminating the need for fixed fixtures to specify the material feeding direction, and accurately positions the material in the vibratory feeder.
• Reduced labor and maintenance costs: Reduced need for manual operation, allowing one person to operate multiple devices, solving the problem of staff turnover, reducing costs associated with human error, rework, and maintenance, as well as time costs.
04. Solution Hardware Configuration
02. VPLC7 Series Machine Vision and Motion Control Integrated Machine
The VPLC711 is a high-performance machine vision EtherCAT motion controller based on the x86 platform and Windows operating system. It can operate offline, supports rich IO control, 30+ robot algorithms, and vision and motion control functions, greatly simplifying the configuration process of vision and motion control projects.
The VPLC series machine vision motion control integrated machine is easy to install and remove, occupies little space, and can be seamlessly integrated with other control unit components (such as servo drivers, sensors, encoders, control valves, etc.) and MES systems, providing a complete end-to-end vision motion control solution.
• Optional 6-64 axis motion control (pulse + EtherCAT bus)
• Built-in real-time kernel MotionRT7, supporting third-party vision software
• Onboard 20 general purpose inputs (10 of which are high-speed inputs), 20 high-speed outputs
• Provides integrated vision and motion control solutions with real-time soft controllers/soft PLCs in an all-in-one open IPC form factor.
Multi-core parallel computing enables efficient processing of core tasks in automated equipment such as motion control and machine vision.
03. RTFuse Flexible Vibration Loading and Unloading System
RTFuse's flexible vibration loading and unloading system, based on positive motion technology, is designed specifically for "vision + motion control" flexible vibration loading and unloading applications, providing a one-stop solution. The software simplifies parameter settings and, when paired with an image acquisition system, can significantly shorten the development cycle and reduce development costs.
Camera Support
It supports most mainstream cameras on the market, and supports parallel acquisition from 4 cameras and visual aerial photography.
▌Quick Configuration
Robotic arm, shaft assembly, vibratory feeder, camera and matrix feeder, tool parameters.
▌Teaching Function
It provides one-click teaching functions for multiple points such as material picking, aerial photography, and material feeding paths.
▌Coordinate Calibration
Supports camera calibration, including modification of XY coordinate direction and world coordinate position correction.
▌Positioning
Automatic calibration can be completed with a single click using the pre-taught motion points.
▌System Switching
It can be switched to the RTfuse fast configuration system to implement the visual inspection process.
▌Visual Interface
The interface is user-friendly and facilitates data monitoring, displaying real-time status, return-to-home status, number of locations, and placement count.
Supported robotic arm types
4-axis module, SCARA robot, Delta robot, Cartesian coordinate robot, 6-joint, etc.
