Vision guided flexible feeding made easy

Abstract

Flexible feeding is an emerging alternative to traditional part feeding methods. This alternative greatly enhances the versatility of a manufacturing workcell by using a robot manipulator and sophisticated sensing devices such as machine vision, thereby significantly reducing both cost and set up time. This article explores the benefits of a new model in PC‐based robot control, which makes the development of flexible feeders and similar applications much easier than using traditional robot programming environments. It also explores how a programming paradigm based on a well‐defined model of the workcell greatly simplifies both the logic of the application and the calibration of the physical machine.

Citation

Sorensen, S. and Stringham, R. (1999), "Vision guided flexible feeding made easy", Industrial Robot, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 99-104. https://doi.org/10.1108/01439919910260213