VisionTec: Advanced Control and Sorting Systems for the Beverage Industry
VISIONTEC has been building inspection and sorting systems for the food and beverage industry since 2011. Its specialty is the sorting of bottles in crates. This gives VISIONTEC a large market share in Germany and Europe. A smaller subsidiary in South America speaks for the very good development of the company, which currently has around 100 employees.
All developments take place in-house
According to the company philosophy, all core competencies lie within the company itself. All developments are carried out in-house and are also serviced. VISIONTEC thus occupies an up-and-coming market segment; reusable systems are becoming increasingly established throughout Europe. This is therefore a good business model for VISIONTEC.
A system, affectionately known internally as a Rubik's Cube, attracts attention at the company's stand at BrauBeviale 2023. "Rubik's cube" because, for space reasons, crates of drinks that are returned from the stores often arrive at the wholesaler wildly stacked on pallets. The retailer has to unload the pallets, sort the crates and reprocess them for the industry. As a rule, these activities are still manual work today. Large sites have an input of up to 5000 crates per hour - a huge amount of work.
Automated sorting of beverage crates with 3D camera system and gripper arm
VISIONTEC has set itself the task of automating the procedure. A 3D camera system determines the next box to be picked from each layer. This is usually the topmost box. It is gripped first and lifted away. Each further gripping process triggers a new camera image. The demonstration model on the stand is due to the space available at the trade fair, in reality it is twice the volume. Nevertheless, the most important components are illustrated at the stand. A so-called broom frame moves downwards to secure the load. The 3D camera captures the image, which is used to identify the box that can be unloaded best. A gripper head then grabs the box in question and sets it aside. After each gripping process, a new image is triggered, which is transmitted to the robot unit and sets the gripping process in motion from the beginning according to the parameters obtained. The gripper head is designed so that it can unload any type of crate. This process is repeated until the pallet is empty and can be moved out on the belt.
