Vision-Enabled Flexible Vibratory Bowl Feeder Handles 400+ Different Parts

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振动碗输送机提供了一种经济可靠的方法，可以在给定方向上展示小部分。但是，振动碗馈线的一个关键弱点是，它使用机械通道和指南以将其定向限制其仅处理一部分或类似零件的家族。将航空紧固件装入压力机的任务似乎非常适合使用振动碗馈线和拾音器机器人自动化。问题在于，所涉及的415个零件将需要数十个不同的馈线。

Rixan Associates，Inc。通过使用机器视觉替换频道和指南来处理几乎无限数量的零件，从而对振动碗馈线的概念开发了独特的看法。德国必威馈线使用振动碗馈线概念在任何可能的方向上随机呈现碗中的零件。当视觉系统在右方向上查看右侧时，它会停止进纸器并将零件的位置发送到将零件加载到印刷机的机器人。申请专利的RIXAN RFS-1000，弹性振动碗馈线系统的价格约为45,000美元，可提高生产率20％，并消除了对运营商的需求，为大多数用户提供了不到一年的投资回报。

使振动碗馈线灵活

Traditional vibratory bowl feeders use a helical shelf-like inclined ramp winding upwards from the bottom of a bowl to a discharge passageway. The passageway’s reciprocating motion pushes the parts up the ramp. Obstructions, cutouts and other orienting devices are arranged along the passageway to topple off parts that are improperly oriented and allow through only those parts that are properly oriented. Vibratory bowl feeders are normally able to handle only a single family of very similar parts. Each different part in a family requires changing or adjusting the obstructions and orienting devices which can take considerable time. As a result, despite its high efficiency and relatively low cost, the vibratory bowl concept is usually not seriously considered for applications involving large numbers of different parts.

Stephen Harris, President of Rixan Associates, felt that recent improvements in the speed, accuracy and reliability of vision systems would make it possible to use a vision system to replace channels and guides to deliver a flexible vibratory bowl feeder. Harris got the opportunity to validate this concept when he competed for a potential customer processing a wide variety of high-value aerospace fasteners in a stamping press. Previously, an operator picked parts out of a bin and loaded them in the proper orientation in the press. The manufacturer wanted to automate this operation because of the potential danger involved in having the operator place his hands into the press. Additionally, the repetitive nature of the task required the operator to take frequent breaks which limited the productivity of the application.

Description of new vibratory feeding concept

Rixan engineers, led by Chief Technical Officer Mark Battisti, developed a unique flexible feeding concept that uses a track on a 24-inch vibratory bowl without the obstructions and cutouts. Every part that reaches the top of the bowl is presented onto a raised semitransparent plenum so the vision system mounted above can easily identify the type of each part and its orientation. The correct parts are picked by the robot while incorrect parts are recycled into the bowl.

Rixan selected a CognexIn-Sight^®5401视觉系统以及通过Cognex和Mitsubishi Electric之间的联合开发工作整合的三菱电动RV-6SL-S11机器人。三菱Melfa-Vision软件合并了机器人编程软件以及Cognex Insight Explorer软件，以同时设置机器人和视觉系统作为集成解决方案。这种新方法使创建具有视力驱动的机器人应用程序具有易于使用功能，例如定位和检查零件，这些零件远远超出了机器人所能完成的功能。

Melfa-Vision包括支持最常见的机器人应用程序的标准工作计划，使新手能够轻松地开发具有多达三个机器人和七个视觉系统的机器人视觉应用程序。Rixan工程师选择了三菱电器机器人，因为它快速速度（每秒6米），并且因为它的覆盖范围很长。他们选择了Cognex Insight 5401视觉系统，因为它提供了其他型号的处理能力的七倍，并且每秒可获得多达60个完整的8位图像。

可以在几分钟内编程新零件

To develop the application, Rixan engineers first ran the Melfa-Vision wizard that calibrates the robot in relation to the feeder. Then, they put a part in the robot gripper in the ideal orientation for pickup. They jogged the robot over the feeder and set the part down on the plenum. This process taught the robot to pick up the part in this orientation at this point on the plenum. Next, they selected a Melfa-Vision wizard that runs the Cognex PatFind^®object location tool and drew a rectangle around the part on the screen. The PatFind tool instantly recognized the part in the zero angle of orientation. This process, which took only a few minutes, is all that was required to program the feeder to handle a single part.

从这一点开始，视觉系统自动识别特定部分，因为它在整个全体会议上移动。当看到零件时，系统会发送信号以阻止馈线。然后，它获取最后一个图像，以确定零件的确切位置并计算其表现角度。机器人移动到零件的位置，扭动其手腕以匹配零件的方向，拾取零件并发送信号以重新启动进纸器，一旦所有“可采用”零件都被删除。

Most parts in this application are symmetrical top to bottom so they can be identified from their silhouette with the plenum backlit as described above. Some other parts must have a certain side facing upwards before they can be loaded on the press. The CognexPatmax^®toolis used to recognize which side is up on these parts. All that is required to train the vision system is placing a part on the plenum in the proper orientation and selecting the PatMax feature from within MELFA-Vision. Top-down lighting is used for parts where pattern recognition is required. White lighting is used for some parts and glare-free polarized lighting for others.

Parts that are in the wrong orientation are simply recycled back into the bowl and continue going around until they become properly oriented. The vision system is able to distinguish one part from another so operators do not have to clean out the bowl when changing from one part to another. The parts remaining from the previous run will pass through the feeder without being used until the corresponding program runs again.

消除操作员并提高生产率20％

紧固件制造商最初下令罪gle Rixan feeding system and programmed it for a few parts. The first feeding system was so successful that the manufacturer has already purchased two additional systems and is in the process of programming them to handle its full range of parts. The feeding system is slightly slower than an operator working at full speed but, since the system does not take breaks it provides an increase of 20% in productivity compared to a human operator. The vision system also eliminates errors that can occur in manual feeding such as putting the part into the press in the wrong orientation, potentially damaging the tooling and causing substantial downtime.

Harris说：“该应用程序成功的关键是Cognex内视觉系统的易于设定，准确性和可靠性。”“客户对视觉系统性能以及视觉系统和机器人之间的紧密整合感到非常满意。我们用来识别部分功能的PATMAX工具比我们看到的其他可比行业工具更快，更准确。最后，Cognex Vision Systems和Mitsubishi机器人之间的简单集成大大减少了开发具有视觉的机器人应用所需的时间，并且在大多数情况下，消除了编写单个代码行的必要性。现在，支持视觉的机器人使得首次有可能应用高效且经济的振动碗，以使应用程序与许多零件自动化。”