Development of Vibratory Part Feeder for Material Handling in Manufacturing Automation : a Survey

In manufacturing automation, material handling plays a significant role. Material handling is the process of loading, placing or manipulating material. The handling of materials is to be performed efficiently, safely, accurately in a timely manner so that the right parts arrive in right quantities to the right locations, at low cost and without damage. The material handling devices are generally designed around standard production machinery and integrated with specially made feeders. In assembly and processing operations, there is a need for the parts to be presented in a preferred orientation, which is achieved using part feeders. A perfect example of feeders is vibratory feeders. Vibratory feeders are commonly used in industries for sorting and orienting parts before assembly. In this paper, a survey of literature regarding design and development of part feeders is discussed. The survey includes sensorless vibratory feeders to vision based flexible part feeders.