RoboToy Demoulding: Robotic Demoulding System for Toy Manufacturing Industry

Abstract

Industrial environments and product manufacturing processes are currently being automated and robotized. Nowadays, it is common to have robots integrated in the automotive industry, robots palletizing in the food industry and robots performing welding tasks in the metal industry. However, there are many traditional and manual sectors out of date with technology, such as the toy manufacturing industry. This work describes a new robotic system able to perform the demoulding task in a toy manufacturing process, which is a tedious labor-intensive and potentially hazardous task for human operators. The system is composed of specialised machinery about the rotational moulding manufacturing process, cameras, actuators, and a collaborative robot. A vision-based algorithm makes this system capable of handling soft plastic pieces which are deformable and flexible during demoulding. The system reduces the stress and potential injuries to human operators, allowing them to perform other tasks wit h higher dexterity requirements or relocate to other sub-tasks of the process where the physical effort is minor.