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Why Random Bin Picking Benefits Everyone's Industrial Automation Needs

A3 Online Marketing Team | 02/24/2016

Creating robots that could pick specific objects from a random collection was a frontier in robotics and automation that remained unsettled for many years. When success seemed close, more hurdles surfaced. Overlapping parts and lighting variations confused the process. Computers were overwhelmed by the data needed to recognize parts and calculate their orientation and position.

Breakthroughs occurred with advanced software, rapid computer processing and vision systems and new options in gripping. Bin picking was referred to as "a problem that's approachable" in the article Intelligent Robots: A Feast for the Senses. A demonstration at Automate 2015 by Recognition Robots showed guests a system that retrieved randomly piled parts and stacked them one-by-one in a uniform orientation.

The work that has gone into making this challenging area a reality has brought together cross-discipline teams to benefit manufacturers of all sizes. Robots aren't made by one separate engineering department at a time. As noted in the article Motion Sees the Benefits of Vision, combining motion and vision requires vertically integrated design.

A robot that can pick random items from a bin has the capability of adapting to the surrounding environment. This is good news for companies that want to automate limited runs or diversify product lines.

Look at the components that give robots the ability to pick through bins and you'll see why the future is bright for robots that can adapt and handle a variety of materials.

Advanced Vision Systems

Creating vision-guided robots is another complex area that manufacturers have worked to overcome. There are three separate coordinate systems to handle and the task can require multiple cameras with proper lighting. Light projections are used to guide robots to parts. FANUC America Corporation uses a "bin picking" wrapper and projects light strips into the bin and takes 16 pictures quickly as described in the article Machine Vision Moves Industrial, Collaborative Robot Applications Forward.

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Both 2D and 3D vision play roles in locating parts and picking them. The write-up Small Assembly Robots with Big Gains describes a system from Mitsubishi that is "a structured light 3D system where it uses a 2D camera and projects a series of patterns to determine where surfaces are."

Sensors and Software

Sensors are another vital component making it possible to engineer bin picking solutions and chart paths using 3D modeling. Sensors are dropping in price and, as noted in the Intelligent Robots article, a fusion of data from different sensors is giving robots increased mobility.

Software acts as the brain and is another reason flexible robots can be used for multiple tasks. Robotic hardware is viewed as a commodity as noted in the article 2016 – The Year of Robot Democratization?, but the software channels specific commands to direct their movements.

Gripping Technologies

Robots that can be fitted with different grippers make the return on their investment even more valuable than a robot designed for only one task. Multi-grippers can be used that combine vacuum, mechanical, and/or magnetic grippers based on part and other process needs.

As noted In Small Assembly Robots with Big Gains, an example of button clusters used in automotive parts shows the impact. One robot can do multiple picks and places and is capable of going to three different bowl feeders and grabbing part A, part B and part C, and bringing them all together onto a workstation.

The designs used and implemented for random bin picking are having positive effects in all areas of industrial robotics and automation. Coordinating vision and motion is making robots increasingly flexible to meet the needs of manufacturers large and small. It's one of the benefits of automation in manufacturing since using robots for bin picking improves quality by identifying parts that do not meet specifications. The robots that reach into bins to remove heavy parts help reduce injuries to employees.

Get an in-depth look at the latest in robotics and industrial automation through trainings, videos, and articles on A3.