Autor: Stefan Kunaschk

In many fields of production for processing tasks with high frequency and repeatability, robots are commonly used. However, the use of industrial and service robots also increases in the logistics sector. Container handling, particularly the unloading of for example coffee sacks, has enormous potential for automation with robotics. The heavy weight together with the deformability of these sacks and unpredictable stack situations inside a container have the highest mechanical and cognitive demands on the gripper technology and the corresponding gripping strategy. This paper describes the development and implementation of such a gripping process.

In the field of automobile production, automation has been implemented since the nineteen-seventies. In logistics, however, robotics has only been used to automate logistics processes with low complexity. These include processes with a high repetition rate and a highly standardized goods portfolio. In cooperation with EASY-ROB, BIBA has developed a new strategy for an intuitive programming of robotics that might be used to fulfill rather complex tasks. The operator defines the process type and important parameters via a common tracking system. Based on this data, a simulation tool calculates the movement of the robot and executes a collision control. Finally, the simulation tool generates the corresponding machine code and the robot starts its process. The intuitive programming excels at a favorably cost-benefit ratio. A demonstrator, focusing on the unloading of pallets has been presented on the CeMAT 2011. After a very brief introduction, interested visitors were able to operate the ...