We’re heading to Stuttgart to present our latest contributions to machine-vision technologies. From the 8th to the 10th of October, you can find us in the Booth nr. 10C40, Hall 10 at Vision 2024. We welcome you to explore our freshest demos and get a hands-on experience with the latest innovations from our lab. Be one of the first to learn how to capture and reconstruct transparent and translucent objects or create digital twinning in motion with our scanners. And beyond. 

What to Expect at Vision 2024? 

We’ve been busy pushing the boundaries of vision-guided robotics and we’re proud to unveil brand new approaches to tackling the most intricate automation tasks. Guiding you through 4 distinct demos, we will showcase how to overcome challenges related to transparent objects, digital twinning in motion, and increasing depalletization efficiency. Let’s see our latest advancements.

The Rebl Industries – Advanced Depalletizing with Photoneo

Depalletizing, a critical yet labor-intensive process, often exposes workers to repetitive strain injuries and contributes to operational inefficiencies due to its manual nature. These challenges can lead to decreased productivity, increased labor costs, and safety concerns in the workplace. How did we help automate this tedious chore? 

At Vision 2024, you can experience a game-changing depalletizing solution built for the demands of real-world production.

Rebl Industries’ innovative system leverages Photoneo’s PhoXi 3D Scanner and AI-powered picking to deliver unparalleled speed and precision. Witness how this solution achieves lightning-fast localization and handles up to 1300 packages per hour, adapting effortlessly to various package sizes and weights.

The collision-free operation ensures seamless performance in high-throughput environments, maximizing efficiency without compromising accuracy. Rebl Industries’ scalable robot-as-a-service model further empowers businesses to adapt the system to their unique intralogistics requirements. See this technology in action with real-world deployments like the successful “Clipson” system in Sweden.

Robotic Bin Picking with MultiView

Moving forward, this demonstration showcases a cutting-edge robotic system designed to handle unstable parts from a central bin. Using three scanning modes – Static MultiView, Hand-Eye MultiView, and Regular Hand-Eye – the robot accurately picks and places even unpredictable parts onto fixtures on a moving conveyor belt. 

The system’s adaptability is evident as it handles parts that can bend and shift, requiring precise localization and handling. It performs multiple picks, regrips at a centering station, and finally places the parts back into the bin after fixture processing. 

The true complexity of this system, however, lies in its ability to juggle multiple demanding tasks concurrently on a single Vision Controller. The “Pick Check to Magnet Drop” function, in particular, showcases this complexity, requiring precise calculations of transformations based on the hinge’s position on the gripper to guarantee accurate re-gripping on magnets. 

While these challenges are typically encountered individually in production environments, this demonstration seamlessly integrates them all. It does this with unwavering accuracy and reliability, even during automated regripping.

The system demonstrates its remarkable capacity to address a multitude of real-world challenges.

3D Scanning of Transparent Objects

Refraction and blending of foreground and background signals make transparent and semi-transparent objects virtually invisible to 3D sensors and cameras. However, numerous industries can greatly benefit from automating the operations of these challenging materials:

• Logistics, Retail, and Grocery: Automation requires handling all types of objects, including those in mixed bins and layered picking scenarios.
• Automotive and Manufacturing: Vision-guided robots often need to handle shiny metal parts and items in transparent packaging. The new technology improves the scanning of glossy objects and reduces interreflection.
• Pharmaceutical Industry: Many medical products are packaged in transparent plastic, requiring effective 3D scanning for handling and automation.

Just imagine robots that can recognize and sort transparent packaging like plastic bags, bubble wraps, and polybags with sub-millimeter accuracy. 

Addressing Challenges with MotionCam-3D

What’s the issue here? When projecting dense patterns, light interference occurs between the objects and the background, making it difficult to differentiate between them. To address this, we utilize the high-speed capabilities of our MotionCam-3D. In conjunction with Sparse projection, we employ multiple scanning patterns for improved object recognition.

We tackled this by creating a new laser projection mode using sparse, unique laser patterns. This helps us separate signals, focusing on the foreground object regardless of its transparency, and capturing its 3D shape accurately. 

Sparse projection is revolutionizing transparent object scanning. Additionally, our new blue laser technology improves scanning performance on transparent objects even more due to blue light’s special scattering properties.

Digital Twinning of Objects in Motion with Red and Blue MotionCam-3D

Simultaneous scanning with multiple devices often results in interference. Why? Because of the overlapping light patterns distort the generated 3D point clouds, hindering accurate model creation. We overcame this challenge with Red and Blue MotionCam-3D. Just how? 

Pairing different wavelengths with high framerate

We tackled the challenge of interference when using multiple 3D scanners simultaneously. We used two MotionCam-3D Color devices, each projecting red and blue light at a distinct wavelength. This allows us to scan the same scene concurrently without any distortion. 

We mount an object on a Techman robot and move it within the cameras’ view. The cameras’ high frame rate (up to 20 fps in grayscale and 12 fps with color) enables us to capture precise data from multiple angles. Moving on, we then process this data using our 3D Instant Meshing application, which seamlessly stitches the scans together in real-time. This creates a highly detailed 3D model of the moving object.

Our 3D Instant Meshing application combines 3D and 2D data to effortlessly merge scans, enabling the automatic creation of real-time models without requiring a global coordinate system.

See you at Vision 2024 – stop by!