The fully automatic EMDE big bag filling system works e.g. with a pre-weighing system, which is equipped with a weighing hopper. The interaction of this pre-weighing system and the fast actuators of the machine and the robot enable us to achieve a cycle time of 90 seconds per big bag. That means every 90 seconds a filled, calibrated and tightly closed big bag leaves the conveyor roller of the filling system, including a product label with information about the lot number, weight and other product-specific data.
The powerful camera system recognizes the position and orientation of the empty big bag within a part of a second and provides the robot with the necessary coordinates to pick it up. The robot purposefully positions the self-developed gripping system onto the empty big bag so that it can be picked up safely. Different sensors detect and monitor the position of the big bag in the robot gripper and, in the event of a fault, ensure that a faulty big bag is thrown away reliably and a new cycle starts again.
With the help of the dynamically controlled, electrical linear axes of the robot gripper, the big bag is then transferred to the load hook into the filling station. As a result, the big bag, as if hung in by the operator, hangs on four automatic pneumatic load hooks, which have also been used in the EMDE standard big bag filling systems for years. The remaining process steps are analogous to manual big bag filling. Only the automatic closing system of the big bags makes a difference. Using a clip-closing apparatus, as it is often used in a smaller scale in the sausage industry, the big bag gets tightly closed.