Allied Technology, in partnership with Universal Robots, is helping to fight childhood hunger by packing food in bags for kids at this year’s Pack Expo in Las Vegas.

LAS VEGAS, NV – For the next three days, Allied Technology will exhibit an incredibly compact packaging solution to package food into bags for kids in need—a Blessings in a Backpack charity event at this year’s Pack Expo in Las Vegas.

Situated in the new Robotics Zone, Allied Technology will participate in the Blessings in a Backpack charity event where they will help pack 6,000 bags of food for kids in need of weekend nutrition across the country.

Allied Technology’s show machine will demonstrate how easily collaborative robots (cobots) can be deployed at various stages throughout the end-of-line packaging process.

Utilizing four Universal Robots E-Series robots, Allied Technology’s show machine will showcase a fully automated end-of-line packaging solution, including: vision-guided conveyor tracking, robotic pick and place, bag dispensing, bag loading and unloading, bag sealing, case erecting, case loading, and robotic palletizing.

“We want to show how simple it can be to not only deploy cobots at different stages, but also show how multiple robots can seamlessly work together to complete an entire end-of-line packaging process,” explains Matt Halley, General Manager at Allied Technology.

The machine begins feeding six different products onto a conveyor and through a vision enclosure equipped with an infrared camera. The camera detects the product’s location on the belt, while an encoder tracks the conveyor’s belt speed and product position. The first robot (UR5e) receives the encoder signal and camera information. The robot picks the product off the conveyor and places it into a bag at the bag loading station.

Once a bag has two breakfast items, two dinner items and two snacks, a second UR5e removes it from the bag holder and seals the bag. The filled and sealed bag is placed on a pedestal for the next cobot to pick.

A third robot, this time a UR10e, will pick a tote from a stack and erect it using a mechanical end of arm tool. The UR10e will pick a filled, sealed bag from the holding pedestal and place it into the empty tote.

After the tote is filled, the full tote will travel down the roller conveyor to the palletizer. Equipped with another UR10e, Allied Technology’s Robotic Palletizer picks filled totes from the conveyor and places them onto a pallet in a 3×2 pattern.

Allied Technology has also included a side demo, adjacent to the roller conveyor, where the same UR10e will pick two small boxes at a time off a modular belt conveyor. Just as before, the palletizing robot will pick and place in a standard palletizing pattern, this time on a separate pallet.

The robotic palletizer will alternate palletizing totes and boxes onto their respective pallets, to demonstrate the versatility of this equipment and technology.

Allied Technology is a machine builder and integrator specializing in robotic packaging machinery, since 1997. They design, develop, manufacture and integrate end-of-line packaging equipment. Headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, they have packaging machines operating in facilities of all sizes and industries across the country.

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If you would like more information about this topic, please call Matt Halley at (303) 502-7753 or email matthalley@allied-technology.com.