MechVisual installs robotic vision guidance system

APRIL 23--MechVisual Inc. (Park City, UT; www.mechvisual.com), a provider of 3-D robotic vision guidance systems, has rolled out its MechVisual software for the manufacturing and shipping industries, in limited quantities. The first system is currently in use at Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation (Cantonment, FL), where the MechVisual software enables Fanuc Robotics (Rochester Hills, MI) model S430 robots to stack bags on pallets in an assembly line without the use of calibration or costly robot vision setup and maintenance. Smurfit-Stone has completed preproduction testing and is about to roll out general use of the MechVisual system in its first plant this week.

MechVisual software gives precise 3-D positioning information to robot systems. The noncalibrated vision system uses ceiling-mounted lasers and cameras to identify the object to be selected as well as the variable height and position of the target destination of the object during operations.

Real-time spatial acquisition technology improves accuracy of the operation while increasing production-line uptime. No calibration set-up or maintenance of the system is needed. MechVisual automatically compensates for equipment drift. The system can be operated in a fully automatic fashion, or an operator can manually point and click targets from the computer screen.