Which sensor(s) do I need

Help & Support Robot Parts
1

Hi All,

I have a pick and place robot that picks up small objects eg skittles sweets.

I would like sweets to be placed in a organizer box with 28 compartments such as the image attached. The size is legal/A4 paper size

28 compartment box
28 compartment box500×500 24 KB

Setup: Python code controlling the robot is currently picking and placing the sweets. An OpenMV cam is detecting the sweets. Arduino sensor that checks the vacuum pump pressure if a sweet has been picked up.

Issue, sometimes sweets would bounce into the another compartment.

Therefore, I would like a sensor to

  1. detect if the sweet has been successfully placed in the correct compartment
  2. nothing has bounced out into another compartment
  3. no foreign object enter the compartment

I have thought about using a 4 x 7 group of laser diode but I think the beam is too narrow. Is there a LIDAR that works? Any suggestions?

Thank you in advance for your help.

2

Hello @k973609 and welcome to the RobotShop community!

Is the camera mounted on the robot? If that’s the case you could use it to check if the sweets are placed in the correct compartment, however, as you are using a vacuum pump it would be quite difficult to pick the sweet again in case it was incorrectly placed and there are other sweets in that compartment so I think it would be best if you simply ensure that the sweets won’t bounce into another compartment either by lowering the vacuum pump a bit more or adding a different material to the bottom so they don’t bounce back.

However, if you consider that a LIDAR would be useful in this application, could you specify how it would be used and where it would be located?

Regards