3D Pipe Picking without moving parts

Scorpion 3D Stinger for Robot Vision is a flexible automation product.

Pipe Picking Application Areas

The Scorpion 3D Stinger technology has an application area potential in Automotive,  3D Robot Vision, Security, Maritime Industry,  Fish Farming and Oil & Gas.

The pipe location feature capability can be adapted for picking pipes both in a factory and outdoor environment. One main feature is that the  Scorpion 3D Stinger camera locates in 3D without any moving parts.

The goal for Scorpion 3D Stinger for Robot Vision is to make it easy to deploy machine vision.  With 3D we make systems that require no training or teaching. The 3D Pipe Picking system requires not teaching to operate and handle different pipe dimensions. The system can be described with the following properties:

Layout:

The 3D Model shows the Scorpion 3D Stinger camera looking at bin full of pipes.  The layout can be is typical for  3D Robot Picking.  The sample application has 20 pipes in five layers. The diameter is 129 mm. The depth varies from 0 to 500 mm.

Scorpion 3D Stinger and binin with pipes to be picked

Scorpion 3D Stinger for Robot Vision will also support mounting the camera on the robot. This provides more flexiblity with regards to handling multiple pipe picking positions.

What does the system do?

The animation below pile of pipes being located in 3D. The number of pipes are being counted. The pipes are sorted in rows and columns. The upper-most pipe is selected to be picked. The diameter is calculated to verify that the pipe is pickable for the robot.

3D Pipe Picking from a Bin using structured light

Hardware and Software:

  • Industrial PC with Intel Multi-Core CPU
  • Scorpion 3D Stinger for Robot Vision
  • Scorpion 3D Stinger Camera
    • Stereo Laser setup with multiline laser
  • 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