3 Axis Palletizer
In recent decades the manufacturing and packing industry has moved towards fully automated plants for packaging and distribution. But in Pakistan, these technologies are hard to come by and even if they are available there upfront cost and maintenance requires a lot of money which the local sector i
2025-06-28 16:30:03 - Adil Khan
3 Axis Palletizer
Project Area of Specialization RoboticsProject SummaryIn recent decades the manufacturing and packing industry has moved towards fully automated plants for packaging and distribution. But in Pakistan, these technologies are hard to come by and even if they are available there upfront cost and maintenance requires a lot of money which the local sector is not willing to invest. We are developing a locally produced and available palletizing solution for end of the line palletizing where the final boxes are palletized in order to ship them safely and securely.
We used linear actuators for 3 axes which are powered by AC servo motors in order to achieve accuracy so that we don't miss the placement of our boxes. The boxes are lifted from a conveyor belt which is feeding boxes to our palletizer which is then pickup by a custom made gripper which is powered by a linearly actuating DC motor which is coupled to a gearbox which reduces the rpm and increases the torque so the closing mechanism so that the mechanism doesn't get stuck due to the weight of the boxes. The boxes will be picked up from the same place on the conveyor which is known as home position but if no box is present on the conveyor the palletizer will wait for the boxes.
The current status of the palletizer will be displayed on the control panel which houses an HMI which displays all the parameters of the palletizer at any point in time. It also displays real-time values like the number of boxes in the current pallet and the position of motors relative to the home position.
The control panel also houses all the control wiring and power wiring is shielded and gauged respectively in order to negate any shorts and burns. the overall power consumption of our system is predicted to be around 1300W hence all the power wring is to be gauged properly.
Project Objectives- Project is supposed to be affordable than both in terms of capital cost and service cost over the period of its lifetime
- The project should be made up of locally avaiable materials in all cases
- The project should be simple and should be able to be dismantled and serviced on the customer side and shouldn't require any special tools
The project can be implemented in current setups where palletizing and stacking of the boxes at the end of the production line is done by hand and manual labor. This project will not only be a step up over the current packaging practices but also will be able to provide an all-day working solution in order to ramp up the production rates which will, in turn, return the company in revenue.
The project can also be altered to support not only boxes or different sizes but can also be used to pick things like bottles and oil cans by altering the design of the gripper many application can be accommodated, minimum effort and capital is required to alter the design to suit multiple applications.
Benefits of the ProjectBenefits:
• the main purpose is to take Pakistani industries to the automation side
• works faster than conventional human labor
• much cheaper than the international manufacturers
• feedback controlled, has the capability to reject the box if under or overweight
• uses less energy
• has the memory assistance, if the power goes off, it will continue from where it stopped
- The project will be able to palletize 27 boxes in 3 rows* 3 col *3 heigh.
- The project will be able to display information on HMI
- The project will be able to perform without any supervision
| Item Name | Type | No. of Units | Per Unit Cost (in Rs) | Total (in Rs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total in (Rs) | 78650 | |||
| Ac motors | Equipment | 3 | 10000 | 30000 |
| linear actuators | Equipment | 4 | 5000 | 20000 |
| dc linear actuator | Equipment | 1 | 1500 | 1500 |
| Stainless steel sheet | Equipment | 1 | 1000 | 1000 |
| Stainless steel rods | Equipment | 2 | 750 | 1500 |
| Aluminum Sheets | Equipment | 2 | 1000 | 2000 |
| Aluminum stands | Equipment | 4 | 750 | 3000 |
| PLC | Equipment | 1 | 7000 | 7000 |
| HMI | Equipment | 1 | 4000 | 4000 |
| Gauged wire | Miscellaneous | 1 | 800 | 800 |
| brackets | Miscellaneous | 8 | 400 | 3200 |
| nuts bolts screws | Miscellaneous | 1 | 350 | 350 |
| limit switches | Miscellaneous | 12 | 50 | 600 |
| Alan keys set | Miscellaneous | 1 | 700 | 700 |
| screw driver set | Miscellaneous | 1 | 500 | 500 |
| breakers, fuses | Miscellaneous | 5 | 500 | 2500 |