Eva makes industrial automation easy

Qualitetch are a UK-based manufacturer of specialised metal components for products ranging from satellites to hairdryers. Their implementation of Eva uses a four cup vacuum gripper to safely and accurately pick up metal sheets and place them on a conveyor belt. Watch the video to hear how their story of working with Eva, and get some ideas about automating your own production line.

Eva is seen here dispensing conductive epoxy on a PCB, as part of a manufacturing assembly line. The PLC informs the robot when a new board has come in, then, with a repeatability of ± 0.5 mm, Eva is able to dispense the epoxy onto the right positions.

Nextgen Technology is a multinational company headquartered in the UK. They provide automated testing and fault analysis services, helping their customers validate and launch new products in industries from automotive to smartphone development.

Nextgen were drawn to Eva for its RESTful API, ease of use and affordability. Today they’re using Eva to add physical interaction to their proprietary testing platform ATAM – allowing them to simulate real end user behaviour.

In this application, the conveyor belt acts as a PLC. When a product  is detected by the light gate, the conveyor belt stops, allowing one Eva to take a photo of the top of the can using a Cognex smart camera. Based on whether or not the logo on the can has been defaced, the second Eva then picks up the can and places it into the correct pass/fail lane, resuming the movement of the conveyor belt. You can read more about this use case on our blog.

The smart camera (Cognex) in this use case locates and identifies the two different types of cards and then instructs the robot to go to those points, pick up the cards, orientate them if necessary and then place them in the correct bin. The pick-up points and coordinates are not pre-programmed (as evidenced by the manual shuffling that occurs in the video) and instead Eva receives the coordinates of each card directly from the camera.

Karakuri is a London-based startup committed to changing the way the world prepares, offers, and experiences convenience food. They utilise small robot arms as part of their ‘robot chef’ solutions.

Eva is the centrepiece of Karakuri’s low-cost ‘Marley’ system – designed to give customers individualised, portion-controlled servings in small-scale catering applications like ice cream and cocktails.