SMART 2 ( Sandwich Making Autonomous Robotic Technology 2 )

SMART 2(三明治制作自主机器人技术)是价值5000亿美元的工业即食食品业务从低工资、低生产率的手工行业向高科技、高工资、高生产率行业转型的里程碑项目。速食和冷冻食品行业面临着一场生死存亡的危机，因为它们再也负担不起或维持着数十万低成本体力劳动工人，这些工人目前在英国、欧盟和北美存放用于其产品(三明治、汉堡、披萨和沙拉)的新鲜食材。由于当前的机器人技术(硬件和软件)无法识别、挑选和放置多孔、可变形、大小和形状不规则的物体，该行业一直无法复制人工组装配料。工业机器人解决方案公司在过去24个月里开发了一种高度创新的机器人硬件和软件解决方案，称为SMART(三明治制作自主机器人技术)，该解决方案来自埃塞克斯大学创新园区的食品实验室。它开发了一种夹持器，可以持续、卫生、精细地挑选和放置任何新鲜的原料(蛋白质、蔬菜、水果和沙拉)，并使用高度创新的视觉系统可以从配料箱中挑选任何原料，并将其精确地放置在容器中，无论是一片面包、一个小圆面包，它现在已经建造并反复测试了一条12机器人生产线，该生产线可以完全自动地组装三明治，速度和精度与人工操作员相同，但成本只有一小部分，预计制造商将能够显著提高生产率和盈利能力，因为他们不受低成本劳动力的束缚。SMART 2是与About Noon的合作，后者是英国领先的三明治制造商之一，与IRS合作，以便在自己购买之前在他们的工厂测试IRS机器人生产线，然后在全球展示解决方案以产生销售。

SMART 2 (Sandwich Making Autonomous Robotic Technology) is a milestone project in the transformation of the $500bn industrial ready food business from a low wage, low productivity manual industry to a high tech, high wage, high productivity industry. The ready meal and frozen food industries faces an existential crisis because they can no longer afford or maintain the hundreds of thousands of low cost manual workers that currently deposit the fresh ingredients that go into their products (sandwiches, burgers, pizzas and salads) in the UK, EU and North America. The industry has been unable to replicate the manual assembly of ingredients because current robotic technology (hardware and software) is unable to recognize, pick and place objects that are porous, deformable, and irregular in size and shape.Industrial Robotic Solutions has over the last 24 months developed and patented a highly innovative robotic hardware and software solution to this problem called SMART (Sandwich Making Autonomous Robotic Technology) from its food lab at the Innovation Park at the University of Essex. It has developed a gripper that can consistently, hygienically, and delicately pick and place any fresh ingredient (protein, vegetable, fruit, and salad) and using a highly innovative vision system can pick any ingredient from an ingredient bin and place it precisely onto a receptacle, whether a slice of bread, a bun, a wrap or a pizza base.It has now built and repeatedly tested a 12 robot production line that can fully and automatically assemble sandwiches at the same speed and accuracy as manual operators but at a fraction of the costs with the expectation that manufacturers will be able to achieve significant improvements in productivity and profitability as a result of being untethered to the availability of low cost manual labourSMART 2 is a collaboration with Around Noon, who are one of the leading manufacturers of sandwiches in the UK who are partnering with IRS in order to test the IRS robot line in their factory in advance of acquiring it themselves and then demonstrating the solution globally to generate sales.