Depalletizer with vision system and method therefor

Abstract

A mixed case pallet depalletizer includes: a base with a pallet seat for seating a mixed case pallet thereon; a robot arm configured to capture and pick at least one case to depalletize the mixed case pallet; a vision system having at least a two-dimensional camera orientated relative to the pallet seat so that the two-dimensional camera is a vertex camera that images a pallet vertex of the mixed case pallet and each case vertex of each case, and a three-dimensional camera is disposed to generate a point cloud with depth information of case sides of each case; and a controller programmed to define, from image data of each case vertex and the depth information of case sides of each case, a contextual relation of each case, and determine a case pick sequence that sequences picking of the at least one case based on the contextual relationship.

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