Cermex ER5 robotic product collating and packing solution

The ER50 robotic product collating and packing solution from Cermex is suitable for lines handling products that cannot be accumulated.

Robotic flow management software, lighter tools produced by 3D printing and conveyor infeed have been applied to improve the robot’s simplicity. An optional vision system can be added to adapt the machine to products arriving in a random manner.

The robot can cater to speeds between 50 and 300 products/min. Depending on the speed to be attained, identical plug-and-play modules can be added to the basic gripping arm module. The master module pilots the machine by routing pick-and-place data to all the slave modules, providing a solution that matches the required speed.

In order to maintain performance at the level required, the system automatically switches from one algorithm to another, eg, from gripping products that are equally distributed between robots to a compensation mode such as ‘take what you can’ (TWYC). In particular, flow distribution intelligence pilots product overload (overspeed) during start-up and run-out, and manages several degraded modes. For example, if the operator decides not to use a robot for a given period (eg, for maintenance operations), the load is distributed between the other robots.

Depending on the target speed, the appropriate number of slave robots can be added to the master robot gripping arm module. In the pre-contract phase, 2D visual simulations of the different hypotheses can be used to validate the number of robots required.

The PC-based advanced human-machine interface enables the operator to naturally interact with the robots and/or other peripherals.