Towards Sensor-Actuator Coupling in an Automated Order Picking System by Detecting Sealed Seams on Pouch Packed Goods

Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks

Frank Weichert³  Adrian Bཬkenkamp³  Christian Prasse⁴  Constantin Timm¹  Bartholomäus Rudak³  Klaas Hölscher⁴  Michael ten Hompel² 

[1] Department of Computer Science XII, Technical University of Dortmund, Otto-Hahn-Str. 16, 44227 Dortmund, Germany; E-Mail:;Chair for Materials Handling and Warehousing, Technical University of Dortmund, Joseph-von-Fraunhofer-Str. 2-4, 44227 Dortmund, Germany; E-Mail:;Department of Computer Science VII, Technical University of Dortmund, Otto-Hahn-Str. 16, 44227 Dortmund, Germany; E-Mails:;Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics, Joseph-von-Fraunhofer-Str. 2-4, 44227 Dortmund, Germany; E-Mails:

关键词: sensor-actuator coupling;    automated order picking;    sealed seam detection;    servo drive;    CCD camera;    image processing;    pouches;   

DOI  :  10.3390/jsan3040245

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

In this paper, a novel concept of coupling the actuators of an automated order picking system for pouch packed goods with an embedded CCD camera sensor by means of image processing and machine learning is presented. The picking system mechanically combines the conveyance and singularization of a still-connected chain of pouch packed goods in a single machinery. The proposed algorithms perform a per-frame processing of the captured images in real-time to detect the sealed seams of the ongoing pouches. The detections are used to deduce cutting decisions in order to control the system’s actuators, namely the drive pulley for conveyance and the cutting device for the separation. Within this context, two controlling strategies are presented as well which specify the interaction of the sensor and the actuators. The detection is carried out by two different marker detection strategies: enhanced Template Matching as a heuristic and Support Vector Machines as a supervised classification based concept. Depending on the employed marker, detection rates of almost 100% with a calculation time of less than 40 ms are possible. From a logistic point of view, sealed seam widths of 20 mm prove feasible.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.