In many industrial quality control applications, Gocator is mounted onto robotic arms to serve as the 3D vision for inspection or guidance. The results are used to verify part features or accept/reject parts, and this feedback can determine robot motion.
In specific robotic applications where the robot is moving back and forth in a simple inspection cycle, there are specific Gocator trigger settings you can use to optimize sensor performance.
TIP: Use Encoder Ignore Backward in Back-and-Forth Robotic Applications
Encoder is one of four types of sensor triggers in Gocator. It causes the sensor to acquire a scan in response to encoder motion (i.e., changes in the values the encoder reports).
A common robotic inspection application involves moving the robot forward to scan, and then backward to return to its original position in order to scan the next part in the queue. In this type of application, the sensor needs to move backward without triggering the sensor to take a scan.
By using Gocator’s Encoder behavior set to Ignore Backward, a scan is triggered only when the target object moves forward.
The Benefit
Ignore Backward allows you to prevent your Gocator sensor from acquiring “junk” data from parts or surfaces that cross the sensor’s field of view as it travels back to its original position––ensuring the scan data is “clean” (i.e., only of the desired target).
