Motoman picking robots line up golf balls before they hit the tee

Motoman Robot­ics has been design­ing mate­r­i­al han­dling robots for many years. As their engi­neers con­tin­ue to inno­vate, their robots become more flex­i­ble and are able to per­form more tasks. The Motoman pick­ing robots show just that with their ver­sa­til­i­ty. They are able to pick car parts, met­al cas­ings and even ath­let­ic equipment.

Like many oth­er robot­ics com­pa­nies around the globe, Motoman ser­vices man­u­fac­tur­ers who pro­duce things of all shapes and sizes. One of the man­u­fac­tur­ers that came to them had a prob­lem with the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of their golf ball line.

The man­u­fac­tur­er want­ed to reduce the need for man­u­al labor in their pro­duc­tion line, accord­ing to the Motoman web­site. They were also look­ing to reduce costs by increas­ing their pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and improv­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty, while min­i­miz­ing down­time. Motoman pick­ing robot­ic sys­tems seemed like the right way to go.

There were sev­er­al chal­lenges that Motoman robot­ic pick­ers faced dur­ing the engi­neer­ing of the solu­tion. Not only did the auto­mat­ed pick­ers have to move golf balls from one con­vey­or to a stor­age tray on anoth­er con­vey­or, but they also had to have spe­cial end-of-arm-tool­ing. The tool­ing was not allowed to have a con­tact area on the ball greater than 0.010 inches.

Motoman end­ed up using a four-axis pick­ing robot from their HM series, with a con­troller, teach pen­dant and cus­tom tool­ing, along with oth­er fea­tures. The grip­per was mul­ti-func­tion and able to han­dle three golf balls at a time, improv­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty sig­nif­i­cant­ly and reach­ing the tar­get pro­duc­tion rate of 66 balls per minute.

Robots​.com has sev­er­al Motoman pick­ing robot mod­els avail­able for sale and cus­tomiza­tion in our ware­house. These robot­ic pick­ers are ver­sa­tile enough to han­dle many dif­fer­ent tasks with­out con­tin­u­ous repro­gram­ming, cut­ting down on costs across the board.

For more infor­ma­tion about automat­ing your pick­ing appli­ca­tion with a cus­tomized Motoman robot­ic sys­tem, con­tact Robots​.com today online or at 877−762−6881.