Abb Schweiz Ag

Abb Ab

Abb Technology Ag

Henrik Knobel

Roy Fraser

Mats Erlandsson-Warvelin

Mats E Warvelin

A method for picking and placing items includes the steps of: providing a picking conveyor transporting items to be picked; providing a placing conveyor to which the items are to be placed; and providing a plurality of robots configured to move the items from pick positions on the picking conveyor to place positions on the placing conveyor. For at least one of the plurality of robots there is defined an actual work area Athat fulfils the condition A<A−(A+A), wherein Ais a theoretical work area, Ais an overlapping work area and Ais an excessive work area of the respective robot. By limiting the actual work area Aof the robots more than what is done conventionally, the total workload between the robots in pick and place systems may be balanced.

Method and a device for picking and placing items

A method for controlling a group of machines such as robots or pick and place machines to pick up an item from a first position and place the item in a second position. Information from a sensor about the location of the first position is provided to a control member, which sends a message from a master process to all machines. The message includes a list of all first positions. The machines dynamically and adaptively handle each of the first positions and inform the master process when each first position is handled. The master process in turn informs all machines that a given first position has been handled. A system, a computer program and a graphical user interface are also described.

Growing community of inventors

Täby, Sweden

Henrik Knobel