IDS Anwendungsbericht: Selbst ist der Roboter

IDS case study: Robots on their own

Fully automatic picking of unknown products from bulk material

In intralogistics, there has been a real hype about robotics for some years now, whether in trade journals or at fairs. Most of them are classic six-axis articulated robots that are looking for their way out of a production environment and into logistics. The goal: fully automated small parts picking.

The main driver is the shortage of labor, and the big challenge here is not a technical component such as the robot or the gripper, but the design of an overall economic process.

Since robots can only handle a portion of the items in each assortment, there are parallel streams of goods and thus possible risks with regard to the flow of goods, inventories, synchronization and consolidation. The "autopick" picking robot from psb intralogistics GmbH in Pirmasens (Germany) meets this challenge. At its core, the fully automated solution for picking individual items consists of a robot with gripper, the IT network for the entire system and a powerful image processing system - equipped with two Ensenso 3D cameras.