
Automated feeding of body panels
Sheet metal for a car side frame arrives in large metal crates in the feed module by tugger train. There, the 3D vision system first scans the position of the crate from above as well as the exact location of the body panels in the crate. Based on this scan, the robot removes the sheet metal from the crate using a flexible three-point suction pad and feeds it to a 2D camera. This checks the position of the components and detects when two components at once have been gripped.

Lathe loading and separation onto wire baskets
Gear blanks in boxes are unloaded by forklift into the feed module. After the camera scan of the bulk material, the parts are separated by a magnetic gripper and placed on an orientation station. The robot then switches to a parallel gripper to pick up the workpiece, reorient it and deliver it to the lathe for machining. After machining, the parts are loaded into the wire baskets of a stacking cell and the full basket stacks can be removed by the operator.

Line input with buffer storage for crank shafts
The combination of Liebherr’s Rotary Loading System (RLS) and bin picking application resulted in a highly flexible line inlet. The crank shaft blanks are randomly arranged in pallet cages and are delivered to the line inlet by means of an automated guided vehicle (AGV) system. The customers host computer delivers quantity specifications of the various component types.