Project
A major precision metrology company came to us and asked us to develop a robotic workcell for high-speed hard disk media thickness measurement and sorting. The machine must have measurement repeatability of better than 5 microinches, deliver a throughput of 3,000 disks per hour, and perform accurately and reliably in 24/7 operations.

Result
We designed and created the Autogager 3000, now the leading product in its field. It features an integral thickness gauging substation which uses non-contact capacitive probes to measure over 3000 disks per hour. Measured disks are  passed on to a high-speed Seiko SCARA robot for sorting, which takes place as an asynchronous process to maximize throughput.

The user interface is extremely easy to use from an operator's standpoint while still providing extensive diagnostic, maintenance, and configuration capabilities. 

This product went from a "cocktail napkin" concept to the first delivered unit in seven months.

Technologies utilized

• Multi-threaded acquisition and control
• Multi-tasking robot programming
• Pneumatic motion and monitoring
• Robotics command and control handshaking
• Comprehensive configuration capabilities
• Production statistics / session management / yield analysis
• Auto-calibration and automatic P/T test
• Extensive error handling / reporting / recovery
• Context-sensitive help w/ hyperlinked graphics
• Built-in remote operation capability
• Operation log (automatic)
• Maintenance log w/ automatic schedule & tickler
• Password protection of features
• Touchscreen-optimized screens

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