Video: ABB FlexPicker replaces human pancake pickers with amazing effect

Mmm, pancakes. While moms might be responsible for giving us our first taste, it's the humble robot that makes these golden-brown discs of battered splendor available for mass market binging. A promotional video from ABB Robotics shows how its FlexPicker robots installed at a HoneyTop foods facility can accelerate production while simultaneously improving hygienic conditions. Four gigabit Ethernet cameras are mounted in front of each robot to locate the pancakes running down the conveyor belt. Software allows the bots to recognize and grab overlapping pancakes and then stack the 'cakes for easy packing. A software reconfig allows for quick production changes from pancakes to pretty much anything the robot can grasp including Soylent Green ration wafers. The video starts slow, but delivers with an impressive 400 pancakes per minute sorting routine -- see it after the break.

[Via Make:]

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 30th 2009 9:49AM]

Windows XP

It's in the video.

[SimonRichards Posted Sep 30th 2009 11:01AM]

The pancake is a lie!

[Wwhat Posted Sep 30th 2009 1:24PM]

Interface has a windows3.1'ish look to it, just as you'd expect with machine controls in real life, only in movies it's all futuristic.

[eSocrates Posted Sep 30th 2009 3:35PM]

^^^^^
These two would have gone straight into the incinerator. At least Simon Richards knows the truth.

For those that are uninformed I'll put it another way.

WHOOSH!

[grindboy Posted Sep 30th 2009 7:39AM]

Why did I find a video about a robotic pancake stacker so awesome? Is it part of the master plan of our soon to be robotic overlords?

[Stsainj Posted Sep 30th 2009 7:56AM]

Stingent hygenic practices?? The human wasn't wearing any gloves!

[azepolyn Posted Sep 30th 2009 9:16AM]

Thank you! I'm glad someone else noticed!

[unibrow Posted Sep 30th 2009 10:14AM]

I noticed as well, couldnt' stop laughing

[StrikeFear13 Posted Sep 30th 2009 8:37AM]

You know, I've always wanted GLaDOS to make me breakfast. *shudders*

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 30th 2009 9:37AM]

The pancakes are a lie!

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 30th 2009 8:38AM]

"speaking about the final solution, William Eaves..."

Great choice of words...

[MozartFX Posted Sep 30th 2009 8:40AM]

I think that's the voice of Major Tom from Metal Gear 3. "You must infiltrate the pancake factory Snake."

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 30th 2009 9:04AM]

Man, that ABB company is dope!

[macserv Posted Sep 30th 2009 9:25AM]

"Contact Dr. Jemima!"

[Hiro11 Posted Sep 30th 2009 9:37AM]

Warm the syrup!

Yum!

[gernblanston Posted Sep 30th 2009 9:39AM]

the PANcake is a lie
the PANcake is a lie
the PANcake is a lie
the PANcake is a lie

[loginatnine Posted Sep 30th 2009 9:55AM]

In case some of you want to know more, these manipulators are called parallel robots or parallel manipulators, google it!

[TheSpleen Posted Sep 30th 2009 10:12AM]

The (pan)cake is a lie!

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 30th 2009 10:16AM]

looks like a human battery collector...

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 30th 2009 10:21AM]

Is it coincidence that I'm listening to the Terminator main theme while watching this video?

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 30th 2009 10:36AM]

Sweet! Of course, the Japanese don't just use them in promotion videos - they make game shows out them as well!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Bs5Y3eUkY

[tucker973 Posted Sep 30th 2009 10:38AM]

mmm... pancake buffer

[fokka Posted Sep 30th 2009 10:40AM]

actually the performance is nothing special for a delta-robotic-actuator. we had a smaller one at college which was able to put up to 10 matchboxes in a grid - per second! quite similar procedure as the pancake-picker.

[Kelvinyam Posted Sep 30th 2009 10:49AM]

I have seen such robot in action during an Automation exhibition. No doubt it's so cool, but the most basic configuration still cost too much for such investment to be justified (USD40k if I remember correctly). Besides I was told that the heaviest load for pneumatic suction system is only 5kg.

[Dante of the Inferno Posted Sep 30th 2009 11:30AM]

"Breakfast is being taken over....by the machines, but you can fight back by buying the Denny's Grand Slamwich."

[Floptickle Posted Sep 30th 2009 1:15PM]

That's just awesome...

[caryjanderson Posted Sep 30th 2009 1:22PM]

Seriously, these things have been out for awhile, and ABB is not the market leader

http://www.adept.com/

[eberan Posted Sep 30th 2009 1:51PM]

No one else chuckled hearing him talk about his 'final solution'?

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 30th 2009 4:46PM]

"This is part of the final solution"

[nathanb131 Posted Sep 30th 2009 5:53PM]

So strange that I just saw a presentation by an ABB integrator today to help us upgrade our robotic cookie packaging line. They showed me a video of pancakes they pick for mcd's but it's able to pull like 5 at a time into a tube before placing it in the packaging. Apparently THIS integrator doesn't have access to that patent. Stranger still that this is an article here, now? These things have been very common in industry for many years. We have a non-ABB line of 2002 vintage happily packing cookies into trays.

Yet strangest of all are the people lamenting about robots destroying human livelihood on a TECH blog. Oh the irony... By your logic we should all be taking rickshaws to work to help lower the unemployment rate. Maybe you need to visit a country untouched by the industrial revolution to see what the standard of living is without replacing grunt work with automation. Everyone will be employed all right, they'll just be working to make sure they can eat at the end of the day. Or... someone can figure out how to produce and distribute pancakes more efficiently and you won't have to worry about spending all your earnings on food.... have it your way.

[shukero Posted Sep 30th 2009 7:16PM]

lol, is it just me or do these look like those alien robots from Star wars??? THERE COMING >_o

[Eternal Density Posted Sep 30th 2009 7:44PM]

Looks kinda like a miniaturized anti-mass spectrometer.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 4th 2009 9:17PM]

FlexPicker? How about protecting from NosePicker 9000? I didn't see gloves on those guys handling the pancakes.