3D Vision Depalletizing Case Study｜High-Precision Automated Solution for Flexible Home Appliance Carton Depalletizing

Carton depalletizing serves as a critical logistics process linking warehousing and production lines in home appliance manufacturing. As product iteration accelerates, multi-variety and small-batch production has become mainstream, rendering traditional manual depalletizing and rigid mechanical positioning solutions inadequate for modern flexible manufacturing requirements.

Manual operation suffers from high labor intensity, low throughput and frequent carton damage caused by human error. Rigid machinery lacks compatibility with mixed carton sizes and requires lengthy changeover adjustments, restricting overall line automation improvement. Against this backdrop, 3D industrial vision technology, with its high-accuracy 3D perception capability, delivers a reliable core solution to resolve typical carton depalletizing bottlenecks in the home appliance industry.

Solution

To tackle the aforementioned production bottlenecks, this project implements a customized depalletizing solution integrating Epic Eye Laser L 3D smart cameras and KUKA robots. Deployed on two independent production lines with one dedicated 3D vision system per line, the setup enables fully automated end-to-end depalletizing operations.

Core Hardware Configuration

The solution adopts Epic Eye Laser L 3D smart cameras. Cameras on the indoor unit line are installed on moving modules to cover two switchable workstations, while cameras on the outdoor unit line adopt fixed mounting layout.

Core Workflow

1.Full carton stacks are delivered and positioned at the depalletizing station via the plate chain conveyor. The main control system synchronously transmits carton model information to the vision system to trigger scanning.

2.The 3D camera rapidly scans the target area to generate high-precision 3D point cloud data. The proprietary algorithm accurately calculates the position, pose and picking coordinates of all cartons on a single layer.

3.The vision system transmits real-time pose data to the KUKA robot, guiding the suction gripper to pick up cartons, rotate them by 90 degrees, and place them steadily on the unloading roller conveyor.

4.After completing picking for all cartons on the current layer, the system automatically initiates scanning and calculation for the next layer. The cycle repeats until the entire stack is fully depalletized, before the system switches operation to the alternate workstation.

The system achieves a 99.9% recognition rate and supports mixed-stack identification for 8 types of carton specifications. One single camera scan outputs full-layer pose data for all workpieces, enabling sequential robotic picking without repeated scanning for each individual carton.

Adopting laser imaging technology, the system delivers stable detection regardless of coffee-colored base surfaces, blue-black printed patterns and transparent adhesive tapes. Free of surface interference, the camera’s full-layer field of view ensures distinct and identifiable carton edge boundaries.

Application Advantages

1. Stable High-Precision Recognition Equipped with laser 3D imaging technology, the system effectively resists interference from carton surface patterns and color differences. It delivers stable positioning accuracy of ±3 mm with a picking success rate of 99.9%.

2. High-Speed Cycle Time for Line Matching The entire scan-and-computation process takes merely 3 seconds, greatly boosting production efficiency compared with traditional solutions and perfectly matching the operating rhythm of plate chain conveyors.

3. High Flexibility for Multi-Spec Compatibility A single system supports 8 types of carton specifications, enabling accurate recognition and picking for both side-placed and flat-placed indoor unit cartons. Product changeover requires no hardware modification — only algorithm parameter switching, completing model replacement within 10 minutes.

4. Industrial-Grade Operational Stability The system adapts to complex workshop conditions including dust and fluctuating ambient lighting, supporting 24-hour uninterrupted continuous production.

5. Low Maintenance and Cost Reduction Frequent system calibration is unnecessary, with only regular lens cleaning required for daily upkeep. The adoptable remotely maintainable algorithms allow remote debugging for new carton specifications, effectively lowering on-site operation and maintenance costs.