Box erecting apparatus and method
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsSzu-Chen HUANG, Po-Hsien CHIU, Mao-Jung CHIU, Mao-Shun LIEN, Fu-Hsien LI
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An apparatus and method for expanding a box blank into a box, the apparatus comprising an arm assembly, a controller, a camera and a box blank conveyor. The arm assembly includes a folding arm having a position in a first direction and a rotational angle controlled by the controller based on a position of a feature of the box blank in the field of view of the camera. The camera captures images of the box blank which are used to position the arm assembly and to evaluate the need to reject a box blank.
Claims20
An apparatus for expanding a box blank, comprising:
- an arm assembly, including:
- a base;
- a first arm coupled to the base and having a box blank contact surface;
- and
- an actuator operatively coupled to the first arm and configured to reposition the first arm relative to the base;
- a camera having a field of view including a feature of the box blank;
- a box blank conveyor, which, in operation, moves the box blank against the box blank contact surface of the first arm of the arm assembly, expanding the box blank;
- and
- a controller electrically coupled to the camera and the arm assembly, the controller in operation, receives an image from the camera, determines a position of the feature of the box blank in the field of view and moves the arm assembly in a first direction using the actuator based on the position of the feature in the field of view.
An apparatus, comprising:
- a controller;
- a push extension positionable, by the controller during operation, in a first direction;
- a folding extension positionable, by the controller, during operation, the folding extension in operation forming an angle with the push extension, the angle determinable by the controller;
- a box blank conveyor, which in operation moves a box blank including a feature in a second direction different from the first direction to contact the folding extension;
- and
- a first actuator coupled to the push extension,
- wherein the controller, in operation, sets a rotation angle of the folding extension around a rotation joint based on the position of the feature.
A method for expanding a box blank, including:
- determining a position of a feature of the box blank relative to a reference point;
- moving, based on the position of the feature of the box blank relative to a reference point, a folding arm in a first direction to align the folding arm with a panel of the box blank;
- determining, using the position of the feature of the box blank relative to reference point, a folding arm angle;
- rotating the folding arm to the folding arm angle;
- and
- causing the box blank to contact the folding arm.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.