Moving part recognition and automatic pick and place using an industrial robot

Robotics research continuously seeks to improve productivity in manufacturing automation. In the last several years, more and more efforts have been put in the integration of multiple sensors into robot systems. The goal is to make robots more adaptive and flexible in unstructured or frequently changing environments, and to enable robots to execute intelligent tasks. Thus the robot productivity as well as applicability can be improved. The object of this study is to develop a multisensor controlled robotic tracking and automatic pick and place system. The system is designed for recognizing and tracking an object which is selected from multiple objects that are unknown and randomly placed on a moving conveyor belt, using a vision, infrared and encoder sensors in the feedback loop. The robot tracks the parts and transfers them to the proper pallets.