Okamura Corporation, in an attempt to further automate its warehouse operations, has partnered with RightHand Robotics (RHR) to integrate RHR’s autonomous piece-picking solution, RightPick2, into its logistics system in Japan.
RightPick2 is a robot piece picking system that uses a vision system and proprietary gripper. The RHR GripperV5 has a three-fingered design with a central suction cup and a payload of 2 kg. The system uses a Universal Robots eSeries cobot and an Intel camera. The system’s controller uses machine learning to optimize picking as the system learns the picked objects.
RHR has designed the system to require minimal programming and commissioning as compared to some other piece picking solutions on the market. The system comes equipped with a pre-trained model, and according to RHR, does not require registration of of all dimensions, weights or images from all angles of picked items.
This picking solution is designed for logistics and warehouse applications. It’s designed to be interoperable with existing warehouse management systems via an API called RightPick-MCP. This allows the system to use barcode scanning in the program logic, to sort items, for example.
According to Okamura, the RickPick2 solution will help to address the challenge of getting labor for everyday tasks such as picking in the logistics industry.
RHR and Okamura are exhibiting the solution now at Logis-Tech Tokyo 2020 Innovation Expo in Tokyo.