Trap design for vibratory bowl feeders

• Published in: Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Vol. 4; pp. 2558 - 2563 vol.4
• Main Authors: Berretty, R.-P., Goldberg, K., Cheung, L., Overmars, M.H., Smith, G., van der Stappen, A.F.
• Format: Conference Proceeding Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 1999
• Subjects: Assembly; Automatic testing; Blades; Filters; Java; Manufacturing automation; Online Communities/Technical Collaboration; Optical sensors; Vibrations; Writing
• ISBN: 9780780351806; 0780351800
• ISSN: 1050-4729
• DOI: 10.1109/ROBOT.1999.773982

The vibratory bowl feeder is the oldest and still most common approach to the automated feeding (orienting) of industrial parts. We consider a class of vibratory bowl filters that can be described by removing polygonal sections from the track; we refer to this class of filters as traps. For an n-sided convex polygonal part and m-sided convex polygonal trap, we give an O((n+m)log(n+m)) algorithm to decide if the part will be rejected by the trap, and an O((nm(n+m))/sup 1+/spl epsiv//) algorithm which deals with non-convex parts and traps. We then consider the problem of designing traps for a given part, and consider two rectilinear subclasses, balconies and gaps. We give linear and O(n/sup 2/) algorithms for designing feeders and have tested the results with physical experiments using a commercial inline vibratory feeder.