DAC February 2022

31 www.drivesncontrols.com February 2022 ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATED MANUFACTURING n Automation hits cricket ball production for a six T he Australian cricket ball manufacturer Kookaburra supplies balls for all international one-day and T20 cricket matches played in the country. The company decided it wanted to automate part of its production process in which human operators performed the repetitive task of placing outside leather covers of cricket balls onto trays after they had been pressed into shape to form half of a ball. These trays were then placed into a rack and moved to the next process – trimming excess leather from the pressed cover. Originally, operators would remove the trays from the rack by hand, bending and twisting them to suit the trimmer every couple of minutes. They would then place each cover into a trimming machine, where a sharp blade would remove the excess leather. Not only was this process repetitive, but the workers also risked serious injuries if they placed their hands too close to the trimming blade. Kookaburra approached a Victoria-based robotics specialist, MAP Services, which suggested using a robotic system to load and unload the trimmer, including a tray dispensing system. The plan was to place the full trays of cricket ball covers into the dispenser, feeding the trays automatically to a robot which would load and unload them to and from the trimming machine. Only one operator would be needed to load a set of trays every 20 to 25 minutes. “This application is about automating processes, speeding up production and getting more consistent results,” explains MAP director, Shane Gallagher. “The manufacturing process needs to be fast but safe, as it includes a pressing machine that has a hydraulic plunger and a blade. Ensuring operators are away from the blade immediately removes risk of serious injury or harm.” MAP designed an automatic racking system, which places six trays carrying 80–90 cricket ball covers onto a conveyor. This part of the application scatters the covers in random locations, so a vision system was needed to ensure that the robot could determine accurately where each cover is and how to pick it up. While CAD-based systems can identify items scattered onto a conveyor or workspace, the challenge in this application was to recognise the position of the covers presented in a random order – and to determine the best method for the robot to pick them up. The vision system uses high-speed cameras to capture 3D images of the covers. Software processes the images and identifies the exact position of each cover. It then determines the most logical order to pick up the covers with sub-millimetre accuracy. The vision system is integrated with a Shibaura Machine TVL 700 robot. It shares its exact coordinates of each cricket ball cover with a single-axis Cartesian device, before travelling to pick up covers at the position identified by the vision system. The robot grabs the cover from the Cartesian and places it in the trimming machine. Empty trays are fed into an accumulation bin for collection. With an operator required only to load trays once every 20-25 minutes, workers can be upskilled and redeployed to other jobs, rather than carrying out repetitive machine- tending tasks. The robot and trimmer start to produce covers before the company’s daily shifts start, and continue after the shifts end and during breaks. When planning the project, MAP approached Shibaura Machine’s partner and authorised distributor, TM Robotics. TM suggested the compact Shibaura’s TVL 700 robot for this application because of its high speed and six-axis movements. These make it easy to change direction, without limiting its range of motion. The robot has a reach of 700mm and a payload of 4kg. The robot was integrated with MAP’s vision system for the project – something the company had not attempted before this unusual application. Following the success of this initial project, Kookaburra ordered another robotic machine-tending system. “On the second robot, an expanded IO module is used for additional inputs and outputs,” says Gallagher. “This application involves having an injection-moulding machine that waterproofs the ball,” he continues. “When injecting a cover with the liquid, it must come out of the machine in eight seconds, otherwise it freezes. The TVL 700 is ideal for this, as it can perform this action at a high speed in a confined space. And with the expanded IO module, it is able to communicate with other pieces of equipment to help complete the more complex cycle.” Kookaburra’s second robot performs six processes. Gallagher says this is rare, “but its flexibility and IO module allows us to achieve more actions”. n An Australian cricket ball manufacturer has installed a vision-controlled robot system to automate a tedious, and potentially dangerous, process in the production of cricket balls. Kookaburra’s automated machine uses a vision-guided robot to feed cricket ball half-covers into a machine that trims excess leather from the covers