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Breakthroughs in the Quest for Random Bin Picking
A bin arrives at a robotic cell and it's filled with parts of different sizes that have just been tossed in. The disorganized, tangled, and overlapping mess presents a challenge. Some of the pieces needing extracted weigh 30-pounds but become like a 50-pound or 60-pound part because of the other items stacked on top.
A robot swings into action with its software sending commands and its vision system processing images faster than the blink of an eye. The items are sorted without any problems and are ready for the next step.
Researchers and robot manufacturers have been dreaming of this scenario for many years. Simply buying one robot that comes with all the components needed to pick and sort completely random objects isn't yet reality. The quest to perform random bin picking with ease has led to tremendous breakthroughs, though, having a wide range of benefits and uses.
Industrial robots have moved from being large and stationary without any perception to being flexible and equipped with sight and sensitive touch. The flexible robot has become a cost-effective alternative, allowing large and small companies to use it for multiple tasks and handle completely different product lines.
What's Needed to Pick and Sort
Why is random bin picking so important? Unloading parts for a machine or fulfilling orders is tedious and puts workers at risk for injury. Getting robots to function well with this type of task expands their capabilities and helps companies of all sizes and in many different industries operate with even greater productivity.
Random bin picking requires "a convergence of technologies, particularly three main components that raise the robot’s intelligence: sensors, software, and end-of-arm tooling," as noted in the article Robotic Bin Picking – the Holy Grail in Sight. For a robot, an unordered bin is chaos in a micro-environment that has no structure and no predictability. Operating in a "Wild West" environment requires flexibility.
Improving Upon People
Developing the technology also shows how robot development mimics what people do well, like deciding what items to pick up and how to arrange them. We have brains. They have software. We have sight and depth perception. Robots have 2D and 3D orientation and sometimes utilize both as described in the article on visiononline.org, 2D or 3D Machine Vision? Why Not Both?
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Our arms and hands are perfect for lifting and gripping, although most of us can only lift light loads. Robots have end-of-arm tooling that can be fitted with grippers for different tasks. Usually only a small amount of downtime is needed to change out the grippers.
Perception itself is a major advance as noted in Intelligent Robots: A Feast for the Senses. Sensors are an important reason that robots have sight and the components are becoming less expensive. It's an area that's still open for development and growth.
About 90 percent of robots currently don't use sensors, according to Henrik Christensen, the Executive Director of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia.
He was quoted in the Intelligent Robots write-up saying that sensor-based robotics makes it possible "to engineer solutions for picking particular objects and to do it very well."
See a Solution in Action
Coming up with a solution for picking random parts from a bin is a creative challenge. Motion Controls Robotics of Fremont, Ohio, is an integrator and developed a robotic cell that uses a 3D area scanner to locate parts, a magnetic end of arm tooling to sort, and a two-finger gripper to pick up the parts. The firm is certified through the Robotic Industry Association's Certified Robot Integrator Program.
Achieving the end result wasn't easy. Motion Control Robotics had to try different vision systems and grippers before settling on the final configuration. The robot is shown operating in a video titled Robotic Bin Picking Cell and uses a sensor that tells the robot if a part was placed properly in the tray. Random bin picking is on its way to becoming so routine that someday we might take it for granted.
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