Palletizing cell

Watch it run

A robotic palletizer turns a stream of single cases into a stable unit load. This figure shows one cell doing that job, one case every 5.8 seconds.

Open the interactive figure and watch a full pallet build. Click to pause, and press → to step one case.

What to watch

• A case rolls out of the infeed tunnel at 0.5 m/s and breaks the photo-eye beam when it reaches the stop.
• The arm lowers straight down, grips on six vacuum cups and lifts straight up before it swings.
• During the swing, the camera on the mast sweeps a red laser line across the stack. The line steps down over empty slots.
• The arm finishes its swing above the slot, then lowers straight down to set the case.
• Even layers lie 2 × 3 and odd layers 3 × 2, so every seam is bridged. Far slots fill first, so the arm never reaches over a case it has placed.

How it is built

Every number on screen comes from one small model: the pallet pattern and fill order, the arm's inverse kinematics and the cycle timeline. The arm solves for the gripper's centre point, which hangs 160 mm to the side of the arm's own plane, so each pick and place lands exactly on target.

The drawing is SVG built with an isometric drawing kit. The static scene is drawn once, and the arm, gripper and cases are redrawn each frame from the model. The source and build notes are in this site's repository under docs/lab/palletizing-cell.

What it leaves out

The cell uses one fixed case size and a fixed pattern, so the camera confirms the stack height and the plan never changes. Real mixed-case cells use that height map to choose where each case goes. The figure also skips pallet dispensing, slip sheets and stretch wrapping.