Servo Driven Inline-Orienter

BY GAUTAM AGARWAL

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

PROF.AKRAM HOSSAIN PROF. MASOUD FATHIZADEH

PROF. LASH MAPA

Objective To design and fabricate Servo-driven Inline

Orienter Prototype that would orient the Valve Cup of the Swiffer® Furniture Spray Can.

Problem The Orientation of the Dip

Tube in the Swiffer® Can is unpredictable.

Consumer of the product does not know which way to hold the Can and spray once the Valve Cup is crimped and position of the Spray Actuator is locked on the Swiffer® Can

Consumer of the product is not able to dispense complete contents of the Swiffer® Can.

Problem Large number of complaints from the

consumers of Swiffer ® Can about not being able to use the complete contents of the Can.

P&G produces 42,120,000 Swiffer® Cans each year and each Swiffer® Can is overfilled by 5gm liquid product to compensate for the unused product.

Problem P&G the manufacturer of Swiffer® provided

registration marks on the Can and the Valve Cup.

The position of the Dip Tube would be known after orienting the Valve Cup Registration Mark to the Can Registration Mark .

Can Registration Mark

Valve Cup Registration Mark

Inline Orienter Machine Orients the Valve Cup of the Swiffer® Can which in-turn

orients the Dip Tube.

Comprise of 10 servo motors that would correct orientation

of 10 Swiffer® Cans simultaneously.

Inline Orienter Machine A Servomotor driven Timing-Screw that holds the Swiffer®

Cans and bring them under Servomotor Correction Stations.

COGNEX 5100 Vision Inspection System to calculate the

orientation angle for each Swiffer® Can passing under.

Orientation Pass/Fail Vision Inspection System which

inspects the accuracy of the Inline Orienter Machine and

activate the Reject System to take the Swiffer® Can out.

After Orientation Once registration marks are aligned to each

other, the Valve Cup will go through the Crimper.

Crimper Machine crimps the Valve Cup. Once Crimped the Spray Actuator would be

placed on each Can relative to the Can Registration Mark.

Filler Orienter Crimper

Research Components

• Objective: To find out an efficient, accurate and fast method of orienting Dip Tube of the Swiffer® Can

• This included research two separate methods of correcting Dip Tube Orientation.

• Research included designing prototypes and testing their functionality

Research Components

Prototype-I

•Using Color Sensors to find the registration marks•Servomotor to correct the Dip Tube OrientationProtot

ype-II

•Using COGNEX 5100 Series Camera to find the registration marks•Servomotor to correct the Dip Tube Orientation

Prototype-I Design Concept• Color sensors mounted

on Shaft of a Servomotor.

• Use Color Sensors to find the position of registration marks on the Swiffer® Can and Valve Cup.

• Once Position is captured calculate orientation move

Prototype-I Sequence Test Run

Sequence Test run simulates the sequence of events for the Inline Orienter. This test run was done without placing the Swiffer® Can , so an orientation angle of 45° was written to the Servo Motion Controller.

Prototype-I Results• Prototype-I was tested with sample Swiffer® Cans and the

results suggested the position of the registration marks was

not accurately detected by the color sensors.

Actual Approximate Angle between

M1 and M2

Angle Reported using OMRON

Color Sensor

% Accuracy

270º (Degrees) 200º (Degrees) 74%

90º (Degrees) 50º (Degrees) 55%

Inline Orienter Prototype-II• Inline Orienter Prototype implements the

functional concept of the Inline Orienter Machine.

Inline Orienter Prototype-II Uses combination of Servomotors, Vision

Inspection System, Programmable Logic Controllers and Pneumatic Grippers to correct the orientation of the Valve Cup.

Servomotor Micrologix PLC Pneumatic Gripper COGNEX 5100 Vision Inspection

System

How it Works? COGNEX 5100 Vision Inspection System

inspects the Swiffer® Can and calculates the angle between registration marks.

This data is being sent to Servo Motion Controller over Ethernet/IP network. Motion Controller calculates the motion trajectory and commands Servo Drives to move servomotors.

How it Works? Air-activated Up-Down Assembly drops the

Servo Correction Stations down. Pneumatic Grippers Activate and hold the

Cans. Servomotors initiate orientation move to

correct the orientation. Pneumatic Grippers De-activate . Up-Down Assembly retracts up.

Prototype-II Correcting Orientation

Inline Orienter Prototype-II Results Prototype-I was tested with sample Swiffer® Cans and the

results suggested the method of finding registration marks

with Vision Inspection Systems was 100% accurate and

orientation of the Swiffer® Cans placed under the pneumatics

grippers was corrected.

Valve Cup Angle Swiffer Can Angle

Orientation Angle Inspection Time Motor Speed Orientation

Result

45º 90º -45º 100ms 900º/second PASS

19 º -115 º 135º 110ms 900 º/second PASS

351 º 350 º -1 º 100ms 900 º/second PASS

35 º 50 º -15 º 105ms 900 º/second PASS

182 º 162 º 20 º 110ms 900 º/second PASS

Conclusion• The method of orienting Swiffer® Cans using

Prototype-II is fast and accurate would be used to design the Inline Orienter Machine for P&G.

• Consumers of the correctly oriented Swiffer® Cans would be able to dispense complete contents of the Can.

• P&G would save $284,884/ Year by avoiding 5gm overfill of the liquid product in each container produced.

• Most Importantly it will bring customer satisfaction on the Swiffer® Spray Can products.

Final Design Inline Orienter Machine• The Inline Orienter Machine is in its

Assembling Stage at Morrison Container Handling Solutions.

THANK YOUQUESTIONS?