Fallas Automation first introduced the Adabot case packer to the food industry back in 2006. A delta-style robotic machine concept, its advanced kinematics and overall motion control are possible because of the performance capabilities of the PacDrive control platform from Schneider Electric. In the newest iteration of the Adabot series, the Adabot LV MKII, the need for sophisticated and fully integrated motion control is greater than ever. This new machine includes 10 axes of coordinated motion in addition to a product infeed component that previous iterations did not have.
Behind much of this machine development work is Walmart, which announced in 2016 that it had a strong preference for Retail Ready Packaging of standup pouches in a format where the pouches display vertically in a single row (see A in photo). The best way for an Adabot to produce this case format at acceptable speeds was to add to the machine what Chris Calabrese, Sales Director at Fallas, calls a “race track style” product belt. By using a race track style belt, Fallas is able to load cases independent of product coming into the case packer. More important, bags are now being placed into a case at the same time that another set of bags is indexing into the system. This ability to perform two different tasks simultaneously results in faster speed. The LV MKII is capable of 150 bags/min. Be sure to go to pwgo.to/5006 to see video of the case packer.
The Adabot LV MKII operates by indexing bags into the machine lying flat on an infeed belt. Before they come near the robotic end effector that transfers them into a case, they’re upended onto their sides as they feed into one of the flighted trains mounted on an elliptical-shaped race track. As soon as six bags occupy the six slots on the train, a Schneider servo motor whisks that train forward to one of two unloading stations. From these unloading stations the delta-style robot’s end effector sweeps the six bags into loading bucket A on one cycle and loading bucket B on the next cycle. Each of these buckets has a top door that closes to keep the bags in the proper orientation. Then the bucket pivots 90 deg to deposit the six bags, in perfect vertical orientation, into a case that waits below.
