FORKLIFT ROBOTICS AUTOMATION EXPERIENCE USING EV3

THE TWO WORDS: EFFICIENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY

It is inevitable that the demand for faster processing of orders will continue to increase significantly as we move forward into the future, and in order to meet these business demands, there is a need for factories to improve their processes and come up with a fully automated system that will surely involve robotics and even artificial intelligence.

Warehouse administrators have concerns with safety regulations, the repetitive task through human labor is very intense with this kind of environment, thus employing forklift robots will certainly eliminate these concerns.

It is said to be that the concept of driver-less forklift is way back decades ago, but it is only recently that we have the technological capacity that made this concept find its way into reality. There are already companies with the engineering capability and they are now selling products for factory automation. If we will choose two words to describe the reasons on why we are leaning into this kind of trend they are EFFICIENCY and PRODUCTIVITY.

Source:

This image shows an unmanned forklift that is programmed to perform repetitive task of picking, routing and organizing packages inside a warehouse.

Nowadays, warehouses and all kinds of manufacturing are nothing without forklift, this thing is entirely and absolutely necessary to run the business, this is the key for the efficiency and productivity when it comes to picking, lifting organizing and moving of materials over short distances inside a manufacturing environment since World War II.

Source
This image shows all the basic parts of a forklift.

BUILDING MY FORKLIFT PROTOTYPE

Today, I am going to share with you my own version of forklift robot using the Lego Mindstorm EV3 Education Set. I also have a screenshot of the program and a video for you to see it in action.

So, I started by taking a selfie first with my daughter with the Lego parts at the background that I need to use for the construction of the forklift robot. My 7-year-old daughter assisted me by taking pictures during the building of this prototype.

These are the parts that I used for this model.

I picked up first the EV3 large motor and I started attaching beams, angular beams, few connectors with friction and beam with cross-hole.

Then, attach another large motor on the other side and in combination with other lego parts such as long axles, connector pegs and frames. These two motors will serve as the main engine for the robot to travel from one place to another.

This is an ultrasonic sensor that I attached in front of the robot. This is to enable the robot to see if the distance of an object in front. So you can program the robot to stop or move depending on the distance of any object in front of it.

These are the available wheels from the EV3 Education core set, using a few connector pegs and axles we can easily attach them to our prototype.

This will serve as the mast(a basic part of a forklift, see the above diagram for more information) which will function as the frame that will support the lift and I will also include here the lifting chain.

These are the Lego parts available in the Lego Mindstorm EV3 kit. You can assemble these to make a chain. I used 49 pieces for this forklift model.

To complete this lifting chain and the mast, I picked up another large motor for attachment on this part, this motor will aid primarily for lifting and laying down of loads.

Here, I installed the mast and the lifting chain using a couple of beams and connectors. I also started making the carriage and the fork.

With a few more parts this model will be completed. Here, I assembled the carriage and the fork.

Then, I used some angular beams and a few connectors to attach this programmable brick.

Basic structure completed, we just need few more beams and connector pegs, then after connecting the sensors and motors using these cables and we are done building. 😊 Then, the device will be ready for programming.

And here is how it is look like when our model is complete. I tried to take some photos of it in different angles.

Let me show you the screenshot of the program. Here it is.

Finally, here is the video for you to see it in action.

I hope that this has been interesting and informative for you

And I'd like to thank you for reading!

You may check out my Microsoft Certifications here.