What are pick and place robots?
In the industries, where transporting the heavy objects from one location to other is a hard task for employees, pick and place robots do this task within a blink of an eye. To get a wide range of these robots, many companies have started to manufacture robots for the ease of laborers. Mainly, a pick and place robot help the industrialists by picking up the objects and placing them at the desired location. Nowadays, these robots come in different shapes which depends on the requirement of industry such as cylindrical, spherical, and many more. For example, spherical robots move in horizontal, vertical and rotational axes whereas spherical robot moves in two rotational axes and one linear axis.
How pick and place robot work?
The basic function of these robots is to pick the object which is done by using a custom end of arm tool. An upstream vision system is provided to the robots to identify the orientation and the wheels present underneath the robot helps to move the robot to the desired location. The body of the robot is designed to provide support to the end of an arm to bend or straightens up so that it can reach the position of an object. Similarly, the robot places the object at the desired location and at a specific position. This is how Pick & place robots work.
Different types of pick and place robots available in Market
On the basis of size, these are basically of three types. They all have different functionalities depending on their type and used in various real-life applications. Give a look at the below article to know the detailed types and their functions.
- Small Robotic pick and place system: These types of robots are very small in size and used when the object is of small size. They are usually used when the distance to be moved by the robot is short which means transferring of objects for shorter distances. In real-life examples, where small robotic pick and place system is used: packing chocolates in boxes, providing orientation to small parts, moving small objects from a conveyor to a tray or vice versa, and fixing components in a circuit board.
- Medium Robotic pick and place system: These types of robots are used for transferring the medium size of objects. They are usually used when the distance needs to be moved by the objects is large or when many smaller pick and place applications combined together. Some examples of real-life applications where these robots are used: assembly of components, the movement of products in between the machines, and movement of products in the food production system.
- Large Robotic pick and place system: These types of robots are used for transferring large and heavy objects like 100 kg or more than that. Some real-life examples where large robotic pick and place system is used: moving cars on a production line, or in raw industry, moving of raw materials on a production line and so on.
What pick and Place robots are used for:
Although there are many ways to use the pick and place robots, very often, they get used in four ways which are:
- Assembly: In general, pick and place robots are used for assembling the parts. They pick the incoming part from a conveyer belt and place that part on the desired location during assembly processes. This is how they are used for assembly processes.
- Bin Picking: Pick and place robots are also used for picking the products from a bin even when the parts are mixed together in a bin. This function performed because of the advanced vision system programmed in the robots. They also placed the part that grabbed from a bin on to the conveyor for production.
- Packaging: This is similar to assembly processes, in this instead of assembling the parts, the robots place those parts in the packaging container to do packing at a vast speed.
- Inspection: An advanced vision system is equipped in the robots to monitor the products that are moving on an incoming conveyor belt and helps to detect defective products. After the defective product inspected, they remove it from the conveyer belt before it reaches the final phase of production.
These four ways are commonly used in today's manufacturing industries, but yeah, the use of robots is not limited to these only, one can also use them according to his/her convenience.
Advantages of pick and place robots:
Nowadays, pick and place robots are the commonplace in the industries due to their benefits. The following are various advantages of using pick and place robots:
- These are fast enough to do any work in just a couple of minutes as compared to humans.
- They do the work with great efficiency and accuracy.
- They never get tired, so can work continuously which increases productivity.
- They are safe for the working environment.
Hope! This article will give you a brief introduction of pick and place robots, their uses and benefits. In spite of all above, one should know his/her requirements to have the optimum solution for your needs.