Robotics and Machine Vision Projects

Mushroom Harvesting Robot
TechBrew has developed a vision-guided robot capable of picking, trimming, and placing mushrooms in boxes. The robot attaches to the farm’s existing shelving, eliminating the need for changes to infrastructure. They are transportable, moving easily between growing rooms when needed.

To date, two limited-scope demonstrations have been completed on two farms. Both went exceptionally well, achieving the goal of 95% successful pick rate. The next step is to harvest a 3-flush growth cycle on our partner farm. This will demonstrate complete autonomous operation of the harvesting system including thinning, stem trimming, packaging, and conveyance out of the growing room.

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Drill & Trim
TechBrew’s Drill and Trim system uses two robots, working together. This system uses our custom 3D vision sensor to guide robots to the work piece and enable the robots to adapt to part location, orientation, and feature variance. The tubs can be loosely placed on the infeed conveyor in any orientation, removing the need to present the part accurately to the robots.

Specifications
Robots: Fanuc
Throughput: 4 minute cycle to process acrylic tub.

Sandwich Stacker
Using high-precision sensors, the system detects sandwich orientation on the conveyor. This allows dynamic stacking from different orientations. The system can be configured to stack different sandwich styles and can be easily adjusted as production needs change.

Specifications
Robot: RS05L Kawasaki 6-axis
Throughput: 50 sandwiches/min
Conveyor Length: 1.3 M (52”)

Dough Scoring
TechBrew’s robotic dough scoring system utilizes our custom 3D vision sensor to find the orientation and top elevation profile of each loaf. The system uses that information to plan the robot’s scoring path. Consequently, loaves can be placed in any orientation on the baking pan.
The user-friendly interface allows for new products to be added and customized scoring patterns created. Different cutting techniques can be utilized including water jet, razor, or rotary blade. Ultrasonic cutting blades ensure consistent, high-quality scoring.

Specifications
Robot: RS05L Kawasaki 6-axis
Vision: Custom Vision Sensor
Throughput: Up to 50 loaves / min / robot (varies by score pattern)

Bakery Applications
Rack tending, oven loading, dough scoring and slicing; we’ve got your industrial bakery automation needs covered.

This robot picks up breadboards from the racking shelf and gently places them on an oven infeed belt.

Specifications
Throughput: 12 cycles per minute

Cheese Packaging
A tight workspace and difficult packaging process at Biery Cheese was creating a bottleneck on the production line. TechBrew designed a high speed, high volume end effector that allows for packaging at the speed of 14 human workers.

Specifications
Robot: FDA certified washdown foodsafe delta
Throughput: 850 pieces / minute

Board Pick & Place
This system uses a series of delta style robots to pick and place lugs at speeds up to 180 boards per minute.
The custom vision sensor measures board parameters such as wane, edge quality, and orientation, then sends that information to the robot. The robot decides whether to:

• rotate the board to place the best edge against the wall
• flip the board to ensure wane is face up
• optimize the orientation of the board to prevent jams downstream.

The high-speed, vacuum-based gripper can pick, flip, rotate, or place boards. The boards can be picked in different orientations at angles up to 45 degrees. Sensors at infeed junctions are used to optimize the flow of boards down the conveyor.

Specifications
Robots: Omron Quattro
Vision: Custom Vision Sensor
Throughput: 60 boards / min / robot

Palletizing
A straightforward application compared to other TechBrew systems, robotic palletizing is commonplace in many different industries. This system uses precision distance sensors to pick and place objects from conveyors to pallets.

Specifications
Robot: Yaskawa NX100
Throughput: 10 mats / min

Bottle Seam Inspection
A high-precision sensor measures the glass thickness to locate the seam on a wide variety of glass types. This method provides more accurate results than other laser triangulation methods. The system is designed to be retrofit onto existing labeling equipment and can be mounted on a wide variety of machines. TechBrew can also provide automation solutions for label inspection and QC, robotic packaging, and palletising.

Specifications
Throughput: 60 bottles / min

Cheese Cutter
TechBrew developed a vision system that can precisely measure weight distribution across a block of cheese. This allows cutting of an exact weight, improving Kraft Canada’s yield by 15%!

Specifications
Vision: SICK

Railcar Opener
TechBrew partnered with Calbrandt to develop an automated railcar opener. This system allows cars to be unloaded without stopping. Travelling at 80 feet per minute, the system locates and tracks each capstan using 3D vision. The system then rotates the capstans, automatically opens each gate, then closes them upon exiting the terminal.
Prior to this, workers had to manually bring the train in four cars at a time over terminal unloading pits. They would open the gates on each car, allow the car to empty, and then close each of the gates. This required a huge amount of labour and took 4 days to unload 100 cars. The new system can unload 25 cars per hour!

Specifications
Throughput: 25 cars / hour

Form Layout Projector
The Form Layout Projection System projects spatially accurate and visually clear product features onto the work area surface as a production aid. Prefabricated concrete walls for tilt-up construction are manufactured in a continuous travelling form that moves through work zone on rails, similar to a railway car. The form is long and consists of a pallet and side walls into which various structural components are placed. This happens over several passes between which concrete is poured into the form.

Specifications
Speed: 25 fpm
Accuracy: ≤ ⅛”
Repeatability: ≤ ⅛”