SEPTEMBER 28--Mikron Assembly Technology (Boudry, Switzerland;www.mikron.com) manufactures a Polyfeed feeding device--a flexible feeding device that is part of a turnkey assembly solution that serves many industries such as automotive, medical, electrical, and consumer goods (see photo). The Polyfeed is based on the use of vision recognition and vertical vibration systems to identify parts in their various forms and positions. The vision system inspects the components on the tooling plate and identifies which ones are suitable for being picked. The coordinates are sent to a four-axis Cartesian robot. The robot then picks all identified components from the plate and places them, properly orientated, into a nest on a link that transports the parts to the assembly machine.
Mikron chose the PC-based PatMax technology from Cognex (Natick, MA;www.cognex.com) for part recognition in the Polyfeed application after speed, robustness, and precision benchmarking were done with several vision algorithms. The vision system ensures the optimal or "intelligent" placement of the parts to maximize efficiency. This feeding method is patented and enables oriented customer parts to be fed that would be impossible, or very difficult, to feed with conventional systems. A variant change can be made quickly, requiring only a few minutes delay before production can restart. A new product can be made production ready in only a few days.
Mikron to date has sold more than 2O of the Polyfeed machines in Europe, and they are all equipped with Cognex PatMax vision. Mikron Assembly Technology uses vision on almost all of its machines and has a team of vision specialists that pioneer the use of vision in many applications.