Market Application Background
In recent years, the demand for intelligent robots in the manufacturing industry has increased significantly, and DELTA robots have become an important solution due to their advantages such as compact structure, high operating speed, and small footprint. As a high-speed, lightweight parallel robot, it identifies the position of target objects through teaching programming or a vision system, and the spatial pose of the gripping center (TCP) is precisely controlled by three sets of parallel servo axes to efficiently complete tasks such as handling and sorting. It is widely used in industries such as food, hardware, and electronics.
In the current market, the loading and unloading workstation, which deeply integrates DELTA robotic arms, machine vision, and flexible vibratory feeders (commonly known in the industry as the "flexible trio"), has become a typical solution. This solution provides highly compatible support for the automated sorting of small batches and diverse products by precisely guiding the robotic arms through the vision system, and specifically addresses the key shortcomings of traditional aluminum vibratory feeders: supporting only a single product type, high investment costs, and poor versatility.
Advantages of Positive Motion Technology Multi-Material Sorting Solution
The positive motion technology solution deeply integrates the VPLC series vision motion control all-in-one machine with the RTFuse vision system. Its core value can be summarized as follows:
1. Highly integrated one-stop architecture
● Integrated hardware and software design enables a plug-and-play deployment mode;
2. Flexible capabilities compatible with multiple scenarios
● Meets the standardized requirements for high-speed grasping of single materials;
● Breakthrough support for mixed identification and simultaneous sorting of multiple material categories (such as mixed material identification and differentiated grasping).
3. Fundamental improvement in production efficiency
● A single machine can complete the entire process of sorting, positioning, and traying multiple types of materials;
● Enhance flexible production response capabilities to quickly adapt to small-batch, multi-variety orders.
01. Sorting Application of DELTA Robotic Arm Vision Multi-Material Recognition Solution
DELTA Vision Multi-Material Sorting Solution Architecture
1. 20DI: Start/Reset/Stop button, negative pressure detection, origin signal, etc.;
2. 20DO: Camera trigger, vacuum breaking/suction, tri-color light buzzer, robot alarm, etc.;
3. EtherCAT interface: Connects to the EtherCAT bus driver to control the DELTA parallel robot arm;
4. Four-channel single-ended pulse output: for connecting to stepper/pulse drivers and encoder shafts;
5. ETHERNET interface: Gigabit Ethernet port, for connecting to area scan cameras that support the Gige protocol to achieve visual positioning and correction.
DELTA Vision Multi-Material Sorting Process
Motion control and machine vision implementation process
Machine Vision
The RTFuse vision system pre-creates visual templates for multiple materials to be sorted. The system uses an overhead camera to visually locate the flexible vibratory feeder, identifying and positioning various materials within the feeder. The DELTA parallel robot then performs the sorting or categorizing of materials within the vibratory feeder based on the acquired visual positioning data.
For products requiring higher precision, a lower-mounted camera can be added. After the robotic arm picks up the material from the flexible vibratory feeder, the lower camera performs dynamic secondary positioning to achieve precision compensation.
Visual positioning primarily utilizes shape matching functionality, achieving target material positioning by using preset features such as shape, size, and marker points. Through coordinate system calibration, the material's world coordinates are transmitted to the DELTA parallel robot arm.
▲ RTFuse Visual Workflow ▲
▲ Simple Visual Template Creation ▲
▲ Visual Multiple Template Settings ▲
Motion control
The flexible vibratory feeder receives loose materials from the feeder. The controller triggers the vibratory feeder to vibrate via RS485 communication, ensuring that the material is evenly distributed on the feeder surface.
After each vibration, the DELTA parallel robot moves along a predefined trajectory (users can quickly teach and set pick-up, placement, and shooting points) based on the coordinate data provided by the vision positioning system, sequentially grabbing materials and accurately placing them at the target workstation.
If there is no material to grab at the moment, the system will automatically trigger the vibratory feeder to vibrate and distribute the material again until a grabble material is detected. This cyclical grabbing-vibration process continues until the feeder is full.
▲ Flexible Vibrating Disc Parameter Settings ▲
▲ Selection of Process Action Type ▲
▲ Calibration and feeding setup ▲
▲ Visual Template 1 (Product 1 Pallet Position Teaching) ▲
▲ Visual Template 2 (Product 2 Pallet Position Teaching) ▲
Advantages of the solution
1. Low technical barrier: Drag-and-drop Chinese configuration vision, application engineers can easily get started after simple training;
2. Fast project development cycle: Mature vision-based robotic arm sorting solutions reduce user development time and costs;
3. Strong hardware and software integration: It integrates EtherCAT bus, pulse hybrid control, machine vision, motion control, and hardware and software integration, making it easy to debug and troubleshoot equipment;
4. Reduce labor costs for enterprises: One person can debug the motion control, vision, and IO logic control of the equipment, solving problems such as engineering staff turnover and high labor costs;
5. Flexible Production: The system can save vision and motion control configuration programs for multiple materials, enabling one-click switching of process packages. It can flexibly handle workpieces of different sizes and shapes without frequent hardware changes, reducing production line downtime.
Solution Hardware Configuration
02. VPLC712 Machine Vision and Motion Control All-in-One Machine
The VPLC712 machine vision motion control all-in-one machine vision controller is an EtherCAT bus vision motion controller based on the x86 architecture. It adopts an integrated design, integrating real-time machine vision, motion control, I/O, and monitoring onto a single multi-core controller. This enables multi-task parallel real-time processing of automated equipment tasks. Through a shared memory mechanism, PC hardware resources are configured via MotionRT750 to achieve high-speed intra-core interaction, driving actuators to perform corresponding operations and completing the overall control of the equipment.
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 drives, sensors, encoders, control valves, etc.) to provide a complete end-to-end vision motion control solution.
The VPLC712 machine vision motion control all-in-one machine supports up to 64 axes and has a minimum EtherCAT communication cycle of 250µs. It features 20 digital inputs, 20 digital outputs, and 4 high-speed latch inputs; as well as 2 local differential pulse axes, 2 AD converters, and 2 DA converters.
03. RTFuse Vision Multi-Material Sorting Application
In response to market demands, Zhengdong has developed the RTFuse vision alignment and bonding solution based on the VPLC series vision motion control all-in-one machine. By combining point teaching with RTFuse vision configuration, it can achieve one-stop and rapid development of alignment and bonding equipment, effectively shortening the project cycle. Operators can complete material conversion in the shortest time by simply adjusting the parameters of the vision and motion control function modules, realizing high-speed and high-precision robotic arm alignment and bonding.
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, axis assembly, feeder feeding, camera and matrix material handling, 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 switch to the RTFuse vision configuration system to implement the vision 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 parallel robot, Cartesian coordinate robot, 6-joint robot, etc.
To help you better and faster develop and apply DELTA's parallel robotic arm vision-based multi-material recognition flexible tray solution, we have prepared detailed documentation and source code for the motion control module. For further information on usage, parameter configuration, and practical application cases, please contact us at 400-089-8936.
