U-PAL, at the forefront of Industry 4.0
Back
ULMA Handling Systems is developing the U-PAL project as part of the HAZITEK programme subsidised by the Basque Government.
Since the irruption of the Industry 4.0 concept, the distribution sector has been immersed in an industrial automation process motivated by the need to improve costs in order to gain competitiveness and productivity. After this growing demand, ULMA has advanced in new concepts of logistics systems and solutions enabling the automation of picking processes.
The conceptualisation of the new palletising robot, called U-PAL, is a clear example of ULMA's commitment to R&D, designed to offer an innovative picking solution that eliminates the strict sequencing of products from the main equation. This new solution goes beyond an innovative solution from the scientific-technological perspective, maintaining coexistence and interrelationship between the different elements and agents that form it: conveyors, self-guided vehicles, robots, stacker cranes, etc. Furthermore, the development of the new palletising robot allows the implementation of the inspection system by artificial vision and the mosaic calculation algorithm without being based on a strict sequence.
The main objective of the U-Pal project is the design and development of a new automatic multi-reference picking system aimed at the medium market segment. It is based on a new design of the supply algorithms of the item input buffers and eliminates the need for the previous unitary picking stages for the items to be palletised used in current systems.
U-Pal offers a differential added value in comparison with other existing multi-reference picking systems, significantly reducing both the cost and the space required for its implementation.
The development of U-PAL has been co-financed by the grant programme to support Business R&D - Hazitek, backed by the Basque Government and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund 2014-2020.
The development of U-PAL has been co-financed by the Department of Economic Promotion, Tourism and Rural Affairs of Gipuzkoa Provincial Council, within the programme "Gipuzkoa Industry 4.0: Development of products and services".
The development of U-PAL has been co-financed by CDTI-Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology within the programme of R+D Projects