Robotic General Parts Feeder: Bin-picking, Regrasping, and Kitting

The automatic parts feeding of multiple objects is an unsolved problem in the manufacturing industry. In this paper, we tackle the problem by proposing a multi-robot system. The system comprises three sub-components which perform bin-picking, regrasping, and kitting. The three subcomponents divide and conquer the automatic multiple parts feeding problem by considering a coarse-to-fine manipulation process. Multiple robot arms are connected in series as a pipeline. The robots are separated into three groups to perform the roles of each sub-component. The accuracy of the state and manipulation are getting higher along with the changes of the sub-components in the pipeline. In the experimental section, the performance of the system is evaluated by using the Mean Picks Per Hour (MPPH) metric and success rate, which are compared to traditional parts feeder and manual labor. The results show that the Mean Picks Per Hour (MPPH) of the proposed system is 351 with eleven various-shaped industrial parts, which is faster than the state-of-the-art robotic bin-picking system. The lead time of the proposed system for new parts is less than that of a traditional parts feeders and/or manual labor.