Fresh produce packaging using a Bosch Pack 201FV horizontal flow wrapper

[davepamn]

Robots with dexterous hands may be the solution. If the robot can recognize the object, pick it up, and place it on the conveyor belt in a few one hundreds of a second than it would work. Speed is a function of computation capability.

[davepamn]

Thanks

Could you use robots to arrange the peppers or fruit on the conveyor belt?

[BoschPackagingUSA]

@davepamn

We have actually tested using delta robots to pick and place peppers and tomatoes. Unfortunately, when using a vacuum cup end effector the vacuum suction needed to pick the vegetable ends up leaving small bruises on it. Similarly, mechanical end effectors are not sensitive enough to avoid bruising, so for now this is better done manually.

[davepamn]

How does the timing work on the line? What happens, if the worker does not put the pepper down fast enough?

[BoschPackagingUSA]

@davepamn

What do you mean by timing? The entire machine is timed via servo drives. Once the machine is started it will either produce empty pouches until flights full of product reach the cutting head, or if equipped with the Bosch No Product/No Package option only the infeed conveyor would run until product is detected and both the cutting head and the film would start in time with the infeed conveyor.

If the pepper is not put down fast enough, our short package reject is an option.