High efficient robotic de-palletizing system for the non-flat ceramic industry

In this paper we describe a system designed to be used on a shop floor of a factory that produces non-flat ceramic products, where an extensive mixture of human and automatic labour is present. Today manufacturing setups rely increasingly on technology. It is common to have all sources of equipment on the shop floor, commanded by industrial PCs or PLCs connected by an industrial network to other factory resources. Also, the production systems are becoming more and more autonomous requiring less operator intervention in every day normal operation. That means using computers for controlling and supervision of the production systems, industrial networks and distributed software architectures. It means also designing application software that is really distributed in the shop floor, taking advantage of the flexibility installed by using programmable equipment.