Festo Wavehandler Conveying and sorting combined
Festo pneumatics innovative new conveyor system signifies a step change in conveying delicate items WaveHandler.
The Festo WaveHandler will convey and take care of fragile and spoilable items such as vegetables and fruit without damaging them.
The WaveHandler can instantly sort fragile objects and transport them. This is due to the fact that they need special handling during transportation if they are going to make it on time onto the market with minimal losses. Due to their small shelf life means timing is vital. In these instances it is thought that the industry could be shown a great deal from nature.
Certainly there is a belief that the industry can learn a lot from natural concepts and wave technology from Festo. In one of Festo new ideas is the brand new WaveHandler pneumatic conveyor principle that will enable the packaging and food industries to generate large financial savings.
The conveyor is made up of several Festo bellow modules that deform the top making a wave movement which will transport the items in a targeted way. Through looking at natural waves, it turned out that the motion of wind on the fine surface of the water creates little ripples that expand when the wind is pressed against them. Yet it's energy that is moved by the wave, not the water. The water compounds inside a wave move up and down in a spherical motion, yet it will stay in about the same place. However the energy created will cause the wave to rollover the top of the sea.
Festo WaveHandler technique works in very much the same way: whilst every individual bellow retracts and advances on the exact spot, a wave will move over the top of the conveyor. Festo Wavehandler screen uses techniques based on web4.0 ideas. Autonomous actuators, which consist of two hundred and sixteen connected pneumatic bellows module, are connected under the covering which creates the top of conveyor. Every module is made up of bellows kinematics that are on the top, as well as Festo MHA1 which is a built-in regular valve as well as the actuating the valve by using suitable electronics. The bellows structure is pneumatically driven and will extend and shrink by about one to two centimetres.
Festo conveyor comes with control and power instructions, through a CAN bus, via a compressed air channel as well as an electrical cable which runs through each of the modules. All of the same modules acknowledge their position within the network and they are designed to realize their role. Installed over the Festo WaveHandler product is a camera system which senses items on the conveyor. The camera then transfers the pictures to the PC which processes them and actuates the conveyor by the software created especially for this function. In each bellow module, every Festo microcontroller is given instructions from the CAN bus and sends these to the valve. Then the particular bellows structure grows once the valve is switched on, that causes the surface to arch at this stage.
In the end you have a control network which moves items on top in a precise manner, allowing it to take over the moving and sorting motion along the way. Festo WaveHandler system is modular in design and can be situated in the middle of the conveying unit in order to distribute the products to another conveyor on the right or the left.
The time and energy required for setting up the conveyor is lowered because an extra handling unit is not needed for the sorting process. Independent modules could be connected as needed and self- configuring, permits for versatile production. Whether it is substantial transformability, decentralised intelligence or plug and create, the foundations of the manufacturing plant of the future already are playing a vital role in today’s goods.