A vision of the future

Motek, September 26 – 29, 2006, The Exhibition Centre Sinsheim, Hall 1, Stand 1326

~TM Robotics shows advanced vision system at Motek~

TM Robotics, the firm responsible for the sales, marketing and support of Toshiba Machine's industrial robots throughout Europe, will be demonstrating an innovative conveyor and vision tracking system at Motek this year. Based on two of the company’s TH450 SCARA Robots connected to a standard industrial vision system, it will demonstrate not only the function of tracking items as they move along a conveyor, but also the robot’s ability to determine the parts’ orientation and discriminate between different products.

“As a handling and assembly show, Motek is the perfect place to demonstrate our new system,” explained Nigel Smith managing director of TM Robotics. ”I believe it will find applications in industries as diverse as pharmaceuticals, packaging and food and electronics, machinery and equipment manufacturing and automotive component handling.”

With the new conveyor tracking system it is possible to construct an inexpensive and high speed line using existing industrial vision sensors, linked via industry-standard Ethernet. The robots’ movements can be interpolated to the conveyors direction and speed; therefore products can be picked without ever needing to stop the conveyor.

The vision sensor which provides the part coordinate data, can be positioned anywhere on the conveyor, upstream of the robots. Parts are then picked as they enter the robots’ working area. The system automatically identifies each work piece and can also perform part sharing or discriminative handling of the items between several robots on the same conveyor. The system has also been designed for multiple conveyors – for example, the conveyor tracking synchronisation can be executed on one conveyor for picking a part and then synchronized to a second conveyor for placing the part.

Examples of the extensive Toshiba Machine TH SCARA range and Cartesian robots are also on show at the stand. The TH series offers arm length from 250mm to 1050mm and can carry payloads from 3 to 20kg, with a positional accuracy of between 0.01mm and 0.03mm. These are extremely quick, accurate and cost effective, yet have extensive functionality. They are ideally suited to the handling and assembly of components and can position parts with extremely high levels of precision.

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For further information contact:
Nigel Smith - TM Robotics (Europe) Ltd
Unit 15, The Weltech Centre, Ridgeway,
Welwyn Garden City, Herts. AL7 2AA
Telephone: +44 (0)1707 871535
Fax: +44 (0)1707 393959
www: http://www.tmrobotics.co.uk/
e-mail: sales@tmrobotics.co.uk

Press enquiries: Richard Stone
Stone Junction, 24A Waldram Park Road,
Forest Hill, London, SE23 2PN
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 8699 7743
Fax: +44 (0) 20 8699 7743
www: http://www.stonejunction.co.uk/
e-mail: richards@stonejunction.co.uk

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