What Happens in Vegas Inspires Innovation for Factory Automation
My colleagues and I just returned from PACK EXPO Las Vegas, the world’s premier packaging and processing tradeshow. We welcomed a record number of visitors at our food safety-themed exhibit looking to discuss packaging application challenges and see our products in action. It is clear that more companies than ever are looking to vision systems to help maximize the effectiveness of their factory automation systems. We are looking forward to exploring these ever growing applications that can benefit from Cognex technology.
If you didn’t have a chance to stop by the booth, here are some highlights of the latest innovations in the areas of machine vision and industrial barcode reading we had on display.
A robot-mounted DS1300 scans trays to calculate the volume of dispensed food. The 3D displacement sensor verifies whether the volume of food meets the user's tolerance. Image B outlines the carrots of the tray on the right, which failed to meet the volume standard. Watch the PACK EXPO interview with Cognex's Carl Lewis about this unique solution.
The Cognex bottle station showed a live, high-speed demonstration of cap inspection and ID code reading at 1,200 bottles/minute. It showcases the speed and capability of three different Cognex platforms; the In-Sight® 5600, DataMan® 262, and Checker® 4G1.
The DS1100 3D displacement sensor demonstrated heat seal inspection, a pass/fail determination of package seals based off thickness measurements. This inspection prevents spoiled food product from reaching consumers by detecting broken vacuum seals, and/or detecting open air channels and food debris in the seal.
Around the show floor
Delkor uses multiple DataMan readers for label and barcode reading. If the barcode is ineligible, the yogurt is rejected from the line.
Denso Robotics used the In-Sight Micro to guide the pick and place of a robotic checkers game. One of our own Cognoids challenged the robot to a Checkers match, resulting in a final score of Robot – 1, Cognoid – 0.
The In-Sight Micro is seen here conducting label inspection on Altoids tins. After passing through the In-Sight vision system, each tin is sorted into groups of 6 in preparation for packaging.
Markem Imaje uses the In-Sight series on their ink jet coding machine. The In-Sight in the demonstration seen above is verifying that the marking is readable and placement is correct.
Three Cognoids, Eric Hershberger, Kaitlin Bowes and David Colman, posed in front of the Cognex booth with Cognex sponsored show lanyards. The photo was published inside Tuesday’s edition of the Show Daily.
View more information on Cognex vision and barcode reading solutions and additional upcoming Cognex events.
