An artificially intelligent harvest and reuse system for planting vegetables has a first mechanic arm moving a plurality of planting plates around a first conveyor, a second conveyor, a first shelf and a second shelf. The planting plates are sent to a connecting conveyor for the grown vegetables thereon to be picked up by a second mechanic arm and further sent to a root cutting apparatus then to a packaging apparatus, while the empty planting plates are further sent to an exit end of the first conveyor and a third mechanic arm places nursery foams with sprouts from a storage area onto the empty planting plates. Then the refilled planting plates are sent back to the corresponding shelf via the second conveyor and placed back into the corresponding layers neatly by the first mechanic arm on a first distributing apparatus.

An autonomous tray handling robotic system is disclosed. In various embodiments, data indicating a set of output stacks to be assembled is stored, each output stack including an associated set of trays each of a corresponding tray type. Operation of one or more robots is controlled, each robot being configured to grasp, move, and place one or more trays at a time, according to a plan, to iteratively pick trays from source stacks of trays and assemble the set of output stacks, including by building each output stack by successively placing on the output stack trays picked from one or more corresponding source stacks. Each of the robots comprises a robotic arm and a tray handling end effector configured to grasp, move, and place one or more trays without assistance from another robot.

A raising/lowering conveyance apparatus has at least two sets of container holders operable to be raised/lowered in conjunction with each other, and to be freely movable closer to or away from containers in the back-and-forth horizontal direction. A sensor operable to detect the upper end height of the transferred containers which have been transferred and raised is attached to a position near the lower end of each container holder, to determine abnormality in posture of the transferred containers through a comparison operation between the value of the upper end height of the transferred containers detected by the sensor and the normal value of the upper end height of the transferred containers calculated on the basis of the height of the container being handled.

Machine and method for conveying items in a production line, wherein there is an incoming batch of separate items on or in an incoming batch carrier, the plurality of items of the incoming batch are moved in a perpendicular vertical direction, while keeping the items immovable relative to the incoming batch carrier in the horizontal plane, the captured items are brought directly above a horizontal conveyor belt having a horizontal movement in a direction of travel in the horizontal plane, a horizontal movement of the items is adjusted and synchronized with the movement speed of the conveyor belt, the items are moved in the vertical direction in order to bring the items to rest on the conveyor belt while maintaining the horizontal movement of the items synchronized with the movement speed of the conveyor belt, then the items are discharged in a batch of outgoing items by the conveyor belt.

An assembly for feeding/picking up containers for washing machines includes an external feeding station provided with a delivery area, an internal washing station, and an external output stations. The assembly further includes at least one support which can move by the action of respective actuators between at least one first configuration of alignment with a respective external station and at least one second configuration of alignment with the internal washing station. The support is provided with a plurality of grip clamps, each clamp is constituted by a pair of mutually opposite jaws, the internal faces of which are substantially concave and contoured.

Herein described is a system and method for packaging packages (C), comprising the steps of: forming a row of packages (C) advancing, one following the other, along a pre-set advancement direction (A), picking up at least two first packages (C) from the row, superimposing each of said first packages (C) on a respective second package (C) of the row, releasing each of the first packages (C) resting on the respective second package (C), obtaining at least two stacks of packages, each of which comprises at least two mutually superimposed packages (C) and stabilising the stacks of packages (C).

Features are disclosed for an overpackage that can contain an object and provide for automated identification and handling of the object by a robotic retrieval system. The automated identification and handling are enabled through self-identifying marks on the overpackage that indicate the identity of the overpackage as well as the relative location of the mark on the overpackage. Using the location information, a robot or other autonomous actor of the robotic retrieval system can identify a path to a pick point and detect whether the proper pick point is engaged through additional identifiers on the overpackage or a pick point.

The invention discloses an automatic-sensing transfer device based on an edge-tracing alignment algorithm, which is characterized by comprising a device body, a rotating device, a lifting device, a stretchable device, a sensing device, a gripping device and a control device. The rotating device, the stretchable device, the lifting device, the sensing device, the gripping device and the control device are all arranged on the device body. The control device is connected to the rotating device, the stretchable device, the lifting device, the gripping device and the sensing device. Accurate positioning of the gripping device can be realized through the transfer device, so that the production efficiency is improved.

A main mover and sub mover are made to run while changing a relative distance of the sub mover with respect to the main mover to change contact positions of cams and cam followers based on a holding position of a sheet member detected by a position detection device to thereby change a position in a horizontal plane of a holder and correct a holding position of the sheet member held at the holder to a preset reference position.

Object manipulation space optimization is a challenging task and used in applications such as heat treatment operation and transport packaging. Traditionally manual intervention is involved to grasp and place the objects for ensuring multi object stacking with zero gap between adjacent objects. This leads to higher cost infrastructure and low productivity. Further, conventional gripper devices fail to optimize object manipulation space and are unable to handle objects of different cross sections with larger lengths. The present disclosure provides a gripper apparatus addressing a single gripper design comprising an adaptor holding unit with a provision for different modular object holding units which are varied in accordance with size, shape and length of the object to be grasped and placed by the gripper apparatus. The modular object holding unit comprises a plurality of fingers which are actuated for grasping and stacking one or more objects such that object manipulation space is optimized.