Studio A.S.E. and the modeling of a gripper head

For one of our major customers, we are developing the modeling of a gripper head for picking 24 or 25 products from a sorter to fill 4, 5 or 6 displays (boxes) by means of a robot.

For one of our major customers, we are developing the modeling of a gripper head for picking 24 or 25 products from a sorter to fill 4, 5 or 6 displays (boxes) by means of a robot.

The purpose of the gripper head is to pick products from the sorter and insert them in their boxes.

The project involves one particularly distinctive feature: as well as having four different box formats, we also have four different product types; this makes it necessary to change the drum according to the product we want to pick.

The drum is simply a roller made up of various tracks (depending on the number of products you want to transport), which is changed from time to time according to the product we need to pick. Each product has different lengths and heights and therefore different center distances. The project assigned to us involves picking:

• 25 products with an extractable rod with format P1-1
• 24 products with an extractable rod with format P2-1
• 24 products with an extractable rod with format P1-3
• 24 products with an extractable rod with format P1-2

For each product we create a new fitting assembly. We also add the configuration in the general assembly during pick-up and deposit.

In the design of the deposit phase, furthermore, we need to consider the overtravel that takes place from the pick-up phase to the deposit phase: the customer would like to achieve overtravel of approximately 32mm.

For this customer, we carry out the following tasks:

1. Mechanical design of the lay-out of the gripper head to analyze the overall dimensions of both the gripper and the robot travel
2. Design of the components for constructing the gripper with the various technical choices, immediately setting the pick-up of the 25th product
3. Choice of commercial components (suction cup for picking up the products, tracks on which slides run, with the respective rods)
4. Fitting of components produced as an assembly, to check and verify various interferences
5. Execution of the design boards of the new components and sub-units
6. Allocation of part numbers to new components by connecting to the customer’s business management system
7. Creation of the bill of materials for production