APPLICATION OF INDUSTRIAL ROBOT AND MACHINE VISION IN INTELLIGENT CALDRON FEEDING PROCESS OF CHINESE BAIJIU

In traditional Chinese Baijiu (white wine) brewing factory, most processes were usually done manually. In order to promote industrial automation in liquor brewing industry and alleviate highly repetitive manual labor, an industrial robot operating system equipped with machine vision was designed to accomplish caldron feeding process during the distillation of Chinese Baijiu. Firstly, Modified D-H method was used to establish robot kinematics model. Shovel actuators and peripheral devices were designed to spread and transport grains during caldron feeding process. After that, an online detection system based on machine vision and master computer were designed to control key parameters of caldron feeding process, including grains height, caldron pressure, robot speed and waiting time, etc. Finally, multiple brewing experiments were carried out on crushed grains and spent grains. The experimental results showed that robot system maximum working space was 3.15 m, which could feed 3 caldrons at the same time. During Chinese Baijiu distillation, air pressure average error in caldron was 8.28 %. High proportion of first-class liquor and second-class liquor was obtained, which met engineering production requirements.