Packaging robot for biscuits

Project Information

Grant agreement ID: CR119991-BRE21343

Project closed

Start date 1 August 1994

End date 31 January 1996

Funded under

• Specific programme of research and technological development in the field of industrial and materials technologies - CRAFT -, 1990-1994

Total cost No data

EU contribution No data

Coordinated by

Banketbakkerij Merba B.V.
Netherlands

Objective

Presently, a substantial part of the packaging activities in the biscuit industry is manually operated. "Quality" and "Hygiene" are principal aspects in this industry and for this reason packaging automation would be very welcome. Until now, unfortunately, automation is not feasible, since biscuits are very fragile and, secondly, are submitted to significant variation.

This project is initiated to develop a packaging robot for fragile biscuits, in combination with a Visual Surface Recognition System (VSRS).
All in all it has been possible to develop and implement a new packaging system for biscuits, that lives up to the following standards:

- Products that vary in size are packed in packaging materials which have a fixed size.
- A production of 17-hours non-stop without problems and without having to clean the machinery has been accomplished.
- Change-overs in a short time by less-educated employees takes place.
- Products can be judges by size, perfectness, colour of the product and decoration in a short time. The computer is informed about the correct products and location of the products.
- The above takes place under good hygienic circumstances and is easy to clean.

The project has succeeded almost completely in the objectives mentioned in the project proposal. On those places where realisation of the objectives was not possible solid alternatives have been found.
With the VSRS the robot will be able to 'observe' the biscuits. Based upon predetermined quality characteristics (such as shape, colour (shine), kinds of damage) the robot can resolve which biscuits are in compliance with established quality standards (and which are not). Next, the robt will package the good biscuits, removing the bad ones in the process. In addition, an Expert System / Quality Data Base, suitable for restoring, analyzing and retrieving the VSRS-data needs to be created. Also, an interactive operating system allowing an easy communication with the robot system has to be conceived.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.

• natural sciences › computer and information sciences › software › software applications › system software › operating systems
• engineering and technology › materials engineering › colors
• social sciences › sociology › industrial relations › automation
• natural sciences › computer and information sciences › artificial intelligence › expert systems

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Programme(s)

• FP3-CRAFT - Specific programme of research and technological development in the field of industrial and materials technologies - CRAFT -, 1990-1994

Topic(s)

Data not available

Call for proposal

Data not available

Funding Scheme

CSC - Cost-sharing contracts

Coordinator

Banketbakkerij Merba B.V.

• EU contribution: No data
• Address: 63,Leegwaterstraat ; 3360 Sliedrecht ; Netherlands
• Total cost: No data

Participants (1)

Gerhard Schubert GmbH

Germany

• EU contribution: No data
• Address: Hofäckerstraße 7 ; 74564 Crailsheim
• Total cost: No data