The annual Pack Expo Las Vegas event brings together some of the leading minds in logistics, packaging and processing to highlight some of the most innovative technologies and game-changing solutions that will define the industry's future. This year, Realtime Robotics will be joining its partners Mitsubishi Electric in booth #N-10011 to highlight how the company's motion planning and collision avoidance technology can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of customers' logistics operations.

Onsite Demo

At the Mitsubishi Electric booth, #N-10011, there will be a live 3D bin picking robot demo, showing the power of Realtime Robotics' collision avoidance and dynamic path planning technology, combined with 3D vision technology from SICK, Inc., in a 3-robot work cell that uses RV-4FRLD, RV-7FRLD and RV-8CRL robots from Mitsubishi.

The demo will show how the technologies and equipment work together to transfer randomly placed energy bars from one tote to the other as quickly and efficiently as possible. To do this correctly, multiple robots will need to occupy adjacent spaces. They are very closely mounted, increasing the possibility of a collision if their paths are not dynamically calculated and updated.

Traditionally, multi-robot systems utilize manual, programmed robot handshaking and "reserved interference zones." These systems are not usually space or throughput optimized. 3D bin picking adds another layer of complexity to the situation, since the geometry of each part is random, meaning the paths the robots must take to approach the part and depart once acquiring it are much more complex. For example, a new image should be acquired and analyzed after each part is picked (in case there was an unexpected position shift of any of the remaining parts).

Realtime Robotics is featuring its RapidPlan software on an IPC to plan and control the 3 robots, based on input from SICK's PLB 3D Guidance Platform (which is capable of CAD matching, geometric matching, edge matching and deep learning). The system also features safety light curtains from SICK.

This system will decrease programming time, decrease modification time, improve throughput and utilize floor space more efficiently. The full demo cell truly has the potential to change how the logistics industry operates.

Speaking Presentation
On September 12th at 4:00 pm PT in the Central Hall on Stage 3 (C-2508), Realtime Robotics' Matt Somerville, director of strategic partnerships, will be joining Mitsubishi Electric's product marketing manager for mechatronics, Patrick Varley, and SICK's business and technical consultant for industrial robotics, Nick Longworth, for a presentation entitled "The Next Evolution of 3D Bin Picking: Multiple Collision-Free Robots." The group will discuss how the combination of 3D vision for robotic guidance, dynamic path planning, and collision avoidance can work together to increase throughput and reduce the footprint needed to deploy industrial robots.

The presentation will delve deeper into the ways these technologies work together to solve the longstanding problems surrounding the creation and operation of multi-robot cells. Attendees can expect to hear more about the ways their organization can take advantage of the latest technologies to speed operations and increase throughput.