Introduction to Industrial Automation

10.17   A Simple Robotic Arm for Pickup 

and Placement of Light Objects

A simple robotic station for receiving and stacking light objects is shown in Figure 10.17. For the 

needs of this industrial automation, suppose that all the movements of the robot are achieved with 

step motors. The whole system is controlled by a PLC, the I/O connections of which are shown in 

Step motor

Object

40 cm

45 cm

50 cm

The shaft rotation

moves platform

up-down

Figure 10.16  Stacking machine of light objects.

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  Introduction to Industrial Automation

the figure. Using the programs developed in the previous applications in Sections 10.15 and 10.16, 

write a PLC program so that each arrived object (signal from the photocell PC) is grasped by the 

robot and placed on the pallet, creating a stack of 20 objects. Particularly at each signal PC, the 

diagram of the robot movements shown in the figure must be accomplished, as well as the vacuum 

creation for suction cup feeding.