No-Code Pick-and-Place: Configure the Cell, Not the Code

Most of the engineering time in a pick-and-place cell does not go into the robot. It goes into the glue: recognizing parts, following them down a moving belt, opening and closing the gripper at the right instant, and working out where each part lands in the container. That logic is usually rewritten for every cell.

The Adeeb Robot Controller takes a different approach. Object detection, conveyor tracking, end-effector control, pick-up, drop-off and stacking are built in, and they are driven entirely by configuration. With virtually no user code, you describe the cell and the controller runs it.

What configuration replaces

In a conventional integration, each of these is a block of application code:

• Object detection: finding parts in the camera image and turning them into pick targets.
• Conveyor tracking: following each part as the belt carries it through the workspace.
• End-effector control: actuating the gripper or vacuum at pick and at release.
• Pick-up and drop-off: the motion between the belt and the container.
• Stacking: deciding where each successive part goes inside the container.

On the Robot Controller these are capabilities you enable, not routines you write. You define your part dimensions and container size, and the system takes care of the rest.

Detection and conveyor tracking from the config file

The controller reads a single configuration file at startup. For the pick-and-place cycle, the key entries describe the geometry of the cell: where the conveyor sits relative to the world frame and where the camera sits. Because the camera is mounted on the robot, its position rarely changes once set. Leaving the robot position at zero makes the robot frame and the world frame identical, which keeps the geometry simple.

From there, the firmware recognizes parts in the camera image, tracks them on the moving conveyor, and picks them. Native conveyor tracking is part of the controller rather than an add-on, so following a moving part is a matter of telling the controller where the belt is.

The cycle is coordinated with the rest of the line through two signals in the same file. A start signal, a rising-edge pulse, tells the controller a new container has arrived. A done signal is pulsed back once the container is filled or emptied. The cycle runs in either direction: conveyor to container, or container back onto the conveyor.

Stacking without drop-off coordinates

Stacking is where hand-written cells accumulate the most special cases. On the Robot Controller you do not enter drop-off coordinates. The firmware knows the size of the container, the size of the part and the spacing to leave between parts, and computes where each successive part should land. Change the part or the box, update the dimensions, and the layout follows.

A digital twin of the cell

The updated UI now visualizes both the conveyor and the container, giving you a complete digital twin of your setup. With the conveyor and container on screen, you can review the cell you have configured visually instead of reading coordinates back out of a file.

The same configuration-first approach extends to testing. Point the camera entry at a still image instead of a live camera and the controller runs in simulation mode, feeding that image to the recognition pipeline so there are always parts to detect and track. You can validate a cycle on the bench before the cell is built.

When you need more control

Configuration covers the standard cycle; it does not lock you in. The full Python API is available for custom motion, so you can start with the built-in cycle and drop down to explicit moves where the application demands it. That is the path a recycling startup took in our plastic sorting case study, writing its own classification pipeline in Python on top of the controller.

See it running

The autorun walkthrough video shows the full cycle: the configuration entries, simulation mode, and the controller picking from a tracked conveyor and filling a container. Pair the controller with the Adeeb Delta Robot for high-speed pick-and-place, and connect drives and I/O over the EtherCAT Master.

Less setup. Less engineering time. More savings. Grab the trial build from the downloads page, request a demo to see the cell configured end to end, or contact us to talk through your parts and containers.