Raw turned and milled gear shafts are placed in metal crates for passing through a hardening oven.
Classically this process is being performed by an operator who picks the products from an belt and carefully enters the product in the hardening crates as the gear shafts may not touch the crate. An eventual collision might damage the product which is strictly prohibited.
We provided various fully automated handling cells which pick gear shafts from an transport belt and place them into hardening crates. Due to the hardening process these crates get quite a bit deformed. In order to be able to place the gear shafts without touching the crate we implemented a camera, illumination on the robot head. Using the image processing we developed it is possible to determine the right position of the holes and, based on these positions, insert the shaft at the right position and angle.
An force-sensitive robot is used in order to be able to detect any eventual collision with the crate.
The system includes crate supply and of course al necessary safety measures for handling the crates as well as the gear shafts.
Other competences used in this solution:
We design and build smart manufacturing solutions for the automated assembly, handling, inspection and processing of a wide range of products.
Our systems operate in 24/7, high output production environments where a high degree of accuracy is essential.