3D Cement Bag Pallett Picker

Scorpion 3D Stinger for Robot Vision can be used for picking Cement Bags from a pallet.

3D Cement Bag Pallet Picker

We will explain the elements of a system like this:

Hardware and Software:

  • Industrial PC with Intel Hexa Core CPU
  • Scorpion 3D Stinger for Robot Vision
  • Scorpion 3D Stinger Camera
  • 3D Calibration Targets

3D Calibration:
Calibration is performed in two steps.

  1. 2D Calibration – Scorpion Calibrator tool is used to remove lens distortion and prepare the system for true sub-pixel operation.
  2. 3D Calibration in Robot coordinates –  ExternalReference3D is used to create the 3D Camera Calibration

Layout:

The 3D Model shows the Scorpion 3D Stinger camera 2050 mm above the floor. The pallet has six layers with five cement bags on a euro-pallet.

3D Cement Bag Picker Layout with the Scorpion 3D Stinger Camera at 2050 mm

Scorpion 3D Stinger for Robot Vision will also support mounting the camera on the robot. This provides more flexiblity with regards to handling multiple picking positions and depending on the application this might be a  better solution.

Using a Stinger 3D Stinger Camera for this task the system will not be affected by the color or pattern on the bag.

What it looks like inside the Scorpion 3D Stinger Camera:

The image below shows the pallet with the cement bags illumination with structured light. The lasers are used to create a 3D image of the bags on the pallet. The height of the bags is measured with a resolution 1 mm.

The pallet seen from the Scorpion 3D Stinger Camera with structured laser illumination

The pallet is 1200 x 800 x 148 mm. The height of six layers are 6 * 96 mm = 576 mm. The total height of a full pallet is 724 mm.

Real-time Cement Bags 3D Images 

The Scorpion 3D Camera produces real-time 3D Images that is used to locate and identify the bag on the pallet. The system will pick the topmost bag and send the 3D coordinates to the robot.

 

Realtime 3D Imaging of a pallet of bags

Realtime 3D Imaging of a pallet of bags

While watching the animation note the following:

  • Very accurate and exact 3D model in real-time
    • Very sophisticated and efficient methods for matching the two cameras
    • The system creates thousands of 3D points in 150-250 ms
  • The systems handles very well the projected lines when being projected in the gap of two bags
  • The wooden pallet is also being described when the laser projection hits the pallet