R O B O T I C S
DATALOGIC ENHANCES
ROBOT GUIDANCE
AND TRACEABILITY
Datalogic, a leader in robotics, Industry 4.0, automatic data capture and process automation, is introducing its
new Impact 12.2 software to further enhance the traceability and ease-of use of vision-guided robots and cobots
used for a wide variety of pick, place and other vital production line tasks.
The new robot guidance and
traceability software is available
throughout the Asia-Pacific region,
and incorporates a number of
calibration and performance
enhancements to make robot rogramming faster
and simpler, as well as improve accuracy and
traceability.
“With Datalogic’s ‘Impact’ 12.2 system, robots
can now be deployed faster, and they are more
adaptable to changing applications in dynamic
industries such as warehousing, logistics, supply
chain, manufacturing, automotive, healthcare,
transport and OEM markets,” says Bradley Weber,
product marketing manager – machine vision,
Datalogic.
“The latest software has been thoroughly tested
in conjunction with leading robotics company
Universal Robots, and has been fully approved
and UR+ certified to work their robots and
cobots. UR+ certification means they have the full
technical support and expertise of the Universal
Robots team, as well as access to their highly
customisable software,” says Mr Weber.
Collaborative robots, or ‘cobots’ work
harmoniously with people in production and
distribution operation such as pick-and-place
and production lines. Often, the robot performs
repetitive tasks requiring strength or precision,
while the person guides the robot to the right
place, provides a part for it to pick, or performs
other tasks that complement the robots
programming.
According to Universal Robots, “Cobots give
manufacturers access to all the benefits of
advanced robotic automation, without the extra
costs associated with traditional robots: difficult
programming, long set-up, and shielded work
cells. This makes automation affordable even for
small-batch production runs and mixed product
assembly.”
SOFTWARE ENHANCEMENTS
Datalogic’s latest Impact software was designed
with a focus on traceability and guidance, with
upgrades to performance, ease of use and
flexibility, to save time and improve productivity,
says Mr Weber.
Performance enhancements are provided by
the new system’s calibration software, which
improves the capability of pick and place
applications; the locating tool to improve
positional accuracy; and OCR upgrades to assist
with high speed traceability applications.
Ease of use features of the new software include
an intuitive system, ease of set-up and simple
integration with robots, processors and cameras.
Like previous software, Impact 12.2 runs on all
Datalogic’s smart cameras and MX industrial
Vision Processors. By utilising the same intuitive
drag and drop environment across all hardware,
users can set up the vision system in less time
and share vision programs between Smart
Cameras and Vision Processors. It also allows
users to create custom user interfaces in
minutes to monitor the line.
Flexibility is important to automated processes,
and the latest software can solve many
applications simultaneously – such as guidance,
gauging, inspection and identification – as well
as solving variations of the same application.
Datalogic’s Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
can read characters in trickier locations or on
harder to read surfaces, such as the side of a
metal housing, the VIN number on the frame
of a car or the date/lot code on a package. The
tool can be set up to read characters of different
fonts or text that is slanted, slightly blurred or
displayed on a noisy background.
“Key customer advantages include swift
and simple calibration, reducing learning
and programming times and accurate robot
guidance, all with full end-to-end traceability to
ensure product quality and transparency,” says
Mr Weber.
Datalogic’s latest Impact software platform
integrates with more than 100 vision tools,
and runs on all smart cameras and industrial
vision processors for any vision application and
inspection requirements.
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