Fraunhofer IPA
'Milestones in robotics' exhibition extended
After two billion grips, it can retire - the 'IRB 340 Flexpicker'. The delta robot for handling tasks from ABB has been enriching the Fraunhofer IPA's 'Milestones in Robotics' exhibition since October 1, 2021.
The delta robot was used at Jacklinks (formerly Unilever) for around 15 years: in a team with three other robots, the ABB robot gripped more than 500 million Bifi sausages from a feed belt under camera control and placed them in the prepared thermoforming film for sealing. Together, the four robots have handled over two billion sausages.
In its in-house exhibition 'Milestones in Robotics', Fraunhofer IPA honors research achievements from almost 50 years of robotics at the institute. Extensive scientific and technical groundwork for the new exhibit was carried out at Fraunhofer IPA from the mid-1990s with developments on the topic of 'robots on conveyor belts' and subsequently the founding of the company Robomotion by former Fraunhofer employees in 2003.
Demand for the salami snacks was very high in the 2000s. The manufacturer, then still called Unilever, was faced with the challenge of having to sort the sausages produced as quickly as possible - a laborious task by hand. Robomotion was able to automate this task based on the IPA developments. But gripping sausages is a challenge for a robot. It must be able to recognize their shape and size and then pick them up easily - even though their surface is very difficult to handle. In addition, the food industry has extremely stringent hygiene requirements. Nevertheless, the robot on show at the exhibition managed the required cycle times of 150 sausages per minute without any problems and also improved process reliability.
As part of the Bifi project, developments were also carried out with the Fraunhofer IPA on the use of 3D-printed grippers on robots. As a result, Unilever began using the weight-optimized triple grippers in production in 2009.
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