Orienting with Overhead Pins – An Exploratory Study Towards the Design of Part Feeders

This paper introduces aspects of an innovative method towards the development of a hybrid part orienter. Focusing on the principle of minimalism, we investigate the use of overhead pins of various classes over a slow moving conveyor to orient polygonal planar parts. We implement a simple planner that yields sequences of static passive pins to orient a given part from a random initial state to a final orientation set. We also encounter cases in which a single final orientation is not found, and thus, we introduce the use of a force/torque sensor (static active pin) to help distinguish between the possible orientations and be able to tell which results. Limitations in orienting parts with overhead pins exist due to the complexity of the problem. Therefore, the purpose of our work is to serve as an initial study towards developing a part feeder that uses a new class of orienting devices, such as overhead pins.