Integrated Design of a Robotic Pick-and-Place System and Control Interface for Bottle Testing Applications Progettazione Integrata di un Sistema Robotico di Pick-and-Place e di una Interfaccia di Controllo per Applicazioni di Test su Bottiglie

This thesis fits perfectly within the Industry 4.0 framework, developing a project focused on the automation of an industrial process at the Krones AG , Germany. In particular, the project addresses the automation of a manual bottle contamination process to relieve the operator of a recurring task and to verify the accuracy and proper functioning of the Aircontronic MSM machine. For this reason, repeated tests are performed to ensure that Aircontronic reliably rejects contaminated bottles with hazardous substances. The need to ensure the correct behavior of the machine is due to the need to prevent water contamination in the Lavatec E machine, which is the cleaning machine located downstream of Aircontronic MSM. Throughout the thesis, technical and project requirements are illustrated in detail. In particular, after several attempts, a robust and versatile gripper fingers are designed in SolidEdge, along with the implementation of a flexible robotic control system to handle various types of bottles and adaptable to both single- and multi bottle scenarios. Furthermore, a user-friendly interface is implemented to allow full autonomous control of the robotic system, by both expert and non-expert operators. Once the above-mentioned requirements were fulfilled, the whole system was tested and validated by the author herself and by a sample of 10 people, randomly chosen to ensure evaluation homogeneity. In both validations, the human-robot interface system fully met the requirements, successfully satisfying the project specifications. This thesis concludes with a reflection on future developments and potential implementations to enhance the integration and flexibility of the system in a broader industrial context.