Analysis and development of a robotic system to extract boxes of RTU containers from double bag

The pharmaceutical field is a very large market in which the cutting edge technologies find a fertile soil. In this field the needs are not only related to the production rate but also to the quality and the environmental conditions of the production process. The sterility is the main feature that must be preserved in each aspect of this field. Sealed Tubs and Trays fit perfectly the standards of cleanliness and sterility without requiring pre-processing overheads. Therefore, companies are investing a lot in this market in such a way to provide new solutions. A further modification to this product type is the usage of a double protection envelope to improve the isolation of the sterile containers from the environment. Among the technologies that are more and more embedded in the automatic machines, robotics is the most challenging one. Anthropomorphic robots can be used to perform complex operations for the products management and to introduce new functionalities to automatic machines. To ensure a perfect fusion of the two technologies, high complex control systems are required. The control system must be able to supervision and control the nominal working conditions but also to react properly to anomalies. It must provide an high flexibility and working modalities suitable for all the possible usages of the machines. The increasing complexity of the control system requires powerful computing platforms and properly developed software. Nowadays, the technology provides the first one. However, the second one must be taken into account by control system engineers that should design well very structured and organized control software by knowing in depth the real hardware. Modularity, re-usability and maintainability are the keywords for this aim. All the presented points are embodied in the thesis project which aimed to take advantage of all the presented aspects.