Robotic Keg Palletizer

Georgetown Brewing, a repeat customer, was looking for a system that could palletize, weigh, cap, and label multiple keg sizes.

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The result was a feature-packed robot cell utilizing Fanuc iRVision that increased throughput and process safety.

 

The keg palletizing system consists of a Fanuc R-2000iB/200R Robot, custom designed end of arm tool with a computer vision system and keg, ring label and cap handling capabilities. The system also consists of an infeed conveyor, pallet place position with justification system, check weigh, VideoJet printer, vibratory bowl feeder, and the necessary control systems.

 

Kegs arrive on the infeed upside down from the upstream process and are conveyed into the pick position for the robot. The robot picks the keg from the side using a pneumatic parallel gripper. The robot places the keg onto the check weigh, which provides the weight of the keg for quality control. While the check weigh rotates the keg for proper top- picking, the robot picks a ring label from the label stack. The robot then moves the label to the VideoJet printer station which prints the beer name, notes, lot number and date on the ring label (per recipe). The robot then picks a cap from the vibratory bowl feeder’s dead nest. To ensure proper placement of the ring label and cap, the robot takes a picture of the keg’s stem, which the vision system uses to provide positional data to the robot. The robot then seats the ring label and cap on the keg and picks up the keg from the top using the pneumatic parallel gripper. The keg is then placed on the pallet. Once the first layer has been completed, the corresponding arm of the pallet justification system will extend and allow for the operator to properly position a pallet on top of that layer. This process repeats for all subsequent layers, and once the full pallet stack is complete, the operator removes the stack from the cell using a forklift.