Adept Technology Inc.

Quick Release gripper overview and development time line.

The “Quick Release” gripper development was due mainly to the following:

1) The high acceleration and decelerations of the Adept Quattro robot made it difficult to hold certain objects with the End Of Arm Tooling (EOAT) using conventional methods such as Venturi vacuum heads with compliant suction cups.

2) The use of a blower (high flow low vacuum system) allowed the Quattro to pick and place the product mentioned above but at rates that are too slow for the industry.

Refined version of the Quick Release tool

High flow blower hose

Adept Quattro end of armtool flange

The following photos are of different items referenced through out this presentation.

Adept Quattro s650 robot used for high speedpick and place

High Flow low vacuum blower system. Used to handle porous product, bagged and bulky products

Blower air intake which is connected to the Quick Release gripper

exhaust

Blower motor

Piab VGS 3010 vacuum generator with a special suction cup used for plastics bags.

Funnel which started the development of the quick release gripper.

Jelly filled pouches which were a primary driver for the development of the Quick Release gripper.

Fin seal which makes it impossible to pick the product with the Piab VGS 3010 reliably

8oz cheese bags which also drove the development of the Quick Release gripper.

The development of the Quick Release Gripper started in December of 2008 in the Adept Technology Charlotte office. I was assigned the task of demonstrating the Quattro’s ability to pick and place jelly filled pouches at 120 pouches per minute.

During the testing the pouches were presented to the Quattro randomly which produced a handling problem when the FIN seal was face up. The handling issue was due to the fact that the standard vacuum generators could not achieve a strong enough hold on the pouches due to air leaks around the FIN seal.

In an attempt to find a method that was suitable for handling the jelly filled pouches in any orientation I ordered a large funnel that had a neck large enough for the pouches to fit into. The idea was to connect the high flow blower intake to the end of the funnel and suck the pouch into the funnel after I modified the funnel by cutting the majority of it away so that there was only an inch or so of the flared end and all of the neck. I also modified the funnel with a screen in the neck to prevent the pouch from being sucked into the blower.

After connecting the funnel to the AIR Intake of the high flow blower system the gripper was capable of picking up all the pouches presented to the robot , however, releasing the product was very slow.

Due to the slow release of the product from the funnel I added two external cylinders to the prototype tool with the idea that I could place a shaft through the funnel and push the product out of the cone using the cylinders.

Funnel cut off to 1 inch on the flareplus the neck shoved through a hole cut in a aluminum bar

This is where I did have a bar that extended through the funnel to the cylinder on the other side

Cylinder originally used to push a shaft down through the funnel to eject the pouch from the funnel

Using the shaft to push the product out worked fine but I was having mechanical problems and decided to take the prototype to Mike McEntire at Entire Automation where he suggested removing the shaft and extending the entire funnel cup from the main body

of the tool. New vacuum head designed to replace the funnel and made to connect directly to the pneumatic cylinders

High flow air hose connects here

High air flow

With the new head attached to the cylinders it was possible to extend the head

and redirect the air flow which resulted in releasing the pouch very quickly.

When the cylinder extends the high air flow is redirected here releasing the product held in the cone.

High air flow

Product released

High flow blower hose connects here

Final design that uses internal cylinders.

Retracted state

Final design that uses internal cylinders.

Extended state