Robotic Palletizer

Overview

A robotic palletizer is the end of a packaging line: it takes finished cases off a conveyor and stacks them onto pallets in a programmed pattern, ready to wrap and ship. This cell is built around a four-axis palletizing robot, a parallel-link arm whose linkage keeps the tool level through its whole reach, so it lifts and sets cases flat without a powered wrist tilt. A single cell can build mixed layer patterns, insert slip sheets, and feed its own empty pallets, replacing a row of manual stackers.

The cell is fenced and controlled from the Control Cabinet, which houses the robot controller, axis servo drives, and the sequencing PLC, and tied together by the Cell Wiring Harness harness and its energy-chain dress pack.

How it works

Cases arrive on the Infeed Conveyor, which orients each case and stages them into a full pick row at the row former. The 4-Axis Palletizing Robot then reaches in with the End-of-Arm Tool, a combined vacuum and side-clamp gripper, to lift the whole row at once and set it onto the pallet in the next pattern position. Each joint of the arm is a Joint Actuator: an AC servo motor through a high-ratio RV reducer with an absolute encoder and a fail-safe holding brake that locks the axis on power loss.

The Pallet Dispenser destacks empty pallets one at a time from a magazine to the build position, and between case layers the Slip-Sheet Dispenser vacuum-picks a fibreboard sheet and lays it down for stability.

Because the arm moves heavy loads fast, the Safety System fences the cell with welded mesh, mutes its light curtains to pass pallets while still stopping for personnel, and interlocks the access doors into the safe-stop circuit.