Robotic vision system checks for presence of drugs
May 1st 2008

Six robotic vision inspection machines from AA Robotics are helping pharmaceuticals company, Boehringer Ingelheim, to speed up production and improve its quality control process.

Boxes are used to transport vials containing liquid drugs between production and packaging. Once the vials have been removed from compartments within the boxes, the boxes themselves return to the production process for refilling.

Ensuring compartments are empty used to require a visual check. Now checks are carried out by an automated robotic process on each of six production lines.

Boxes pass beneath a Cognex Insight camera mounted on the Z axis of an inverted Denso SCARA robot arm. The robot moves the camera around, checking that all vials have been removed.

An inspection cycle takes 20sec, a significant improvement on the previous system rate. A further benefit of the inverted arm is that it can operate successfully in the tight confines of the production line.

There is Ethernet communication between robots and camera.

Boxes are released for the next process only when they are authorised to do so by the machine.