An efficient depalletizing system based on 2D range imagery

We propose an efficient approach towards the solution of the de-palletizing problem, based on active vision. We describe a system comprising an industrial robot and a time of flight laser sensor, which performs the depalletizing task in real time, and independently of lighting conditions. In our case, the target objects are solid boxes of known identical dimensions, neatly layered but with arbitrary orientation within a layer, which are all placed on a platform. The layered structure of the target platform allows for 2D imagery. The system locates the position of the boxes by tracking one of the corners they expose to the laser source. The system locates the desired corners by applying the scan line approximation technique, adapted to fit the needs of our application, to the 2D input data. The advantages of our system over existing applications are its simplicity, robustness, speed and ease of installation.