Robotic arm key used as pill dispenser

Citation

(1998), "Robotic arm key used as pill dispenser", Industrial Robot, Vol. 25 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.1998.04925baf.004

Robotic arm key used as pill dispenser

Robotic arm key used as pill dispenser

Automatic pill dispensing, common in large hospital pharmacies, will soon come to corner drugstores, if designers at ScriptPro LLC, Mission, Kansas, succeed with their SP 200/S automated drug dispenser. Using a four-axis robotic arm with access to 200 different medications, the unit can handle prescriptions for up to 200 tablets or capsules at a rate of 60 prescriptions per hour.

It takes requests via existing pharmacy computer systems and fills the proper sized vial, counting the pills with optic sensors, then prints and applies a label. To satisfy concerns about reliability and size, the system has survived a 1.5 million-cycle life test, equivalent to ten years of continuous use, and has a 12-ft² footprint.