20kg-capacity palletising cobot ‘levels playing field’
Reeco Automation, the Welsh specialist in cobot-based palletising systems, has announced a palletiser based on a new 20kg-capacity cobot (collaborative robot) which, it says will level the playing field between palletising systems based on traditional industrial robots and those using cobots. It believes that this will, in turn, make end-of-line robotic automation attractive to manufacturers of all sizes, especially smaller ones for whom standard robots have often been too complex, bulky, and costly to buy and maintain.
Traditional robots have the attractions of being able to operate to high speeds and to carry large loads with precision, making them ideal for palletising large volumes of products. They are also usually reliable and can operate around-the-clock if necessary. But they are expensive and require a lot of floorspace as well as protective fencing.
Until recently cobots have been limited for palletising applications by their restricted load-carrying capacities. But with the recent arrival of Omron’s 20kg payload capacity TM20 cobot, Reeco believes that cobot-based palletising could become more attractive, especially for users with limited floorspace. The cobots are smaller, lighter, cheaper and easier to deploy than traditional robots, as well as being easy to program. They are also designed to work safely alongside humans, and do not need protective fences.
The TM20 robot (developed by Omron in partnership with Taiwan-based Techman) has a reach of 1.3m.
Reeco says its RB2000 palletiser based on the 20kg cobot can be programmed to perform a variety of tasks and to work with different types of products, pallets and packaging, making them more flexible than human operators in many applications.
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