An Electromagnetic Gripper for Multiple Picking of Iron Laser-Cut Parts

This work presents a study for the multiple picking of metal parts e.g. obtained by laser beam machining of iron or steel sheets. The objective is to optimize the automatic sorting of the semi-finished products. The authors present a model for the interaction between a commercial magnetic gripper and stacked metal parts, which was validated exploiting an ad hoc test bench. Moreover, the authors propose a solution for the monitoring of the process, exploiting the impedance measurement of an auxiliary coil mounted in the gripper. This latter feature also allows to increase the safety of the workers and of the working area since picking monitoring can also be used to sense faults of the system or parts defects which could cause loosening or dropping of the grabbed metal parts.