학술논문

A Reconfigurable Gripper for Robotic Autonomous Depalletizing in Supermarket Logistics
Document Type
Periodical
Source
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett. Robotics and Automation Letters, IEEE. 5(3):4612-4617 Jul, 2020
Subject
Robotics and Control Systems
Computing and Processing
Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Grippers
Service robots
Robot sensing systems
Shape
Force
Logistics
grippers and other end-effectors
mechanism design
Language
ISSN
2377-3766
2377-3774
Abstract
Automatic depalletizing is becoming a practice widely applied in warehouses to automatize and speed-up logistics. On the other hand, the necessity to adapt the preexisting logistic lines to a custom automatic system can be a limit for the application of robotic solutions into smaller facilities like supermarkets. In this work, we tackle this issue by proposing a flexible and adaptive gripper for robotic depalletizing. The gripper is designed to be assembled on the end-tip of an industrial robotic arm. A novel patent-pending mechanism allows grasping boxes and products from both the upper and the lateral side enabling the depalletizing of boxes with complex shape. Moreover, the gripper is reconfigurable with five actuated degrees of freedom, that are automatically controlled using the embedded sensors to adapt grasping to different shapes and weights.