Software upgrade enhances robot guidance

Datalogic has introduced its IMPACT 12.2 software to further enhance the traceability and ease of use of vision-guided robots and cobots used for a wide variety of pick, place and other vital production line tasks.

The robot guidance and traceability software is available throughout the Asia–Pacific region, and incorporates a number of calibration and performance enhancements to make robot programming faster and simpler as well as improve accuracy and traceability.

“With Datalogic’s IMPACT 12.2 system, robots can now be deployed faster, and they are more adaptable to changing applications in dynamic industries such as warehousing, logistics, supply chain, manufacturing, automotive, healthcare, transport and OEM markets,” said Bradley Weber, Product Marketing Manager – Machine Vision, Datalogic. “The latest software has been thoroughly tested in conjunction with Universal Robots, and has been fully approved and UR+ certified to work their robots and cobots.

“UR+ certification means they have the full technical support and expertise of the Universal Robots team, as well as access to their highly customisable software,” said Weber.

“Datalogic’s latest IMPACT software was designed with a focus on traceability and guidance, with upgrades to performance, ease of use and flexibility, to save time and improve productivity.”

Performance enhancements are provided by the system’s calibration software, which improves the capability of pick-and-place applications; the locating tool to improve positional accuracy; and OCR upgrades to assist with high-speed traceability applications.

Ease-of-use features of the new IMPACT software include an intuitive system, ease of set-up and simple integration with robots, processors and cameras.

Like previous software, IMPACT 12.2 runs on all Datalogic’s smart cameras and MX industrial vision processors. By utilising the same drag-and-drop environment across all hardware, users can set up the vision system in less time and share vision programs between smart cameras and vision processors. IMPACT also allows users to create custom user interfaces in minutes to monitor the line.

Datalogic’s OCR capability can read characters in trickier locations or on harder-to-read surfaces, such as the side of a metal housing, the VIN number on the frame of a car or the date/lot code on a package. The tool can be set up to read characters of different fonts or text that is slanted, slightly blurred or displayed on a noisy background.

“Key customer advantages include swift and simple calibration, reducing learning and programming times and accurate robot guidance, all with full end-to-end traceability to ensure product quality and transparency,” said Weber.

Datalogic’s latest IMPACT software platform is said to integrate with more than 100 vision tools, and runs on all smart cameras and industrial vision processors for any vision application and inspection requirements.