Setup of an innovative industrial feeder through a new open simulation tool

The packaging operations of non-regular and/or non-rigid objects in industry are very often performed manually. This is due mainly to the difficulties in manipulation by robotic grippers, but also to the problems related to a correct feeding of the objects in the work area. When sophisticated automatic vision systems, able to guide the picking operations, are too expensive or too complex for a specific application, or when a high feed rate makes them unusable, the need of a different approach to the problem arises. In this paper the mathematical model of an innovative feeding system allowing the motion and the correct alignment of industrial glue blocks is described. It is simple and cheap to build, but its strengths seem to be its high flexibility and robustness.