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NXT Robotics

 

NXT Warehouse

           An end-of-line plant model

 

 

Daniele Benedettelli,

December 2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Starting from the color sorter arm, I built this plant around it, realizing a desktop-scale model of an automated warehouse. It features the 4DOF palletizing manipulator robot, and an automatic guided vehicle that moves products (colored balls) from the picking stations to the dropping stations, implemented as gravity racks. The development took 2 months.

 

 If you want a cool LEGO industrial model for your company to attract people to your stand in the next fair, contact me!
 

The first model I built, with many forklifts. Even if the video shows just one forklift working, the system is scalable and can manage multiple forklifts using Bluetooth communication.
 

The NXT warehouse model

NXT Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV)

  
       

 

 

The forklift navigates following on tje edge of the dark line, and parking with great precision using the colored spots, that serve as a simple topologic landmarks.

 

The robot uses standard RC servos instead of NXT motors, because they allow more precise movement control, ease of assembly, smaller dimensions. The servos are driven using MINDSENSORS NXTservo interface.

 

I modelled the missing LDRAW parts for the Mindsensors NXT servo mounts. Download the new parts here. You can find the other Mindsensors servo parts in this Philo's webpage.

 

Here you can buy MINDSENSORS devices.

Here you can find a lot of servo motors.

 

 

 

The model was built for the Elettric80 company, to be featured at the Interpack Fair in Dusseldorf in May 2011. It was an exceptional eye-catcher, attracting hundreds of people, much more than the real machines. The system worked for 7 days, 10 hours per day, proving to be very robust. I stressed LEGO hardware to its limits, reducing wheels and tyres to dust, literally.

 

I report some random comments:

"Dude, that's crazy!"

"OMG, that's sick! Are those LEGOs?!?"

"This is worth the whole fair"

"That's the coolest thing I've seen today!"

 

 

Me after 4 hours of fair...

...and after 70 hours of fair. The LEGO system was still up and running.