Improving the Pickups of Components on a Gantry-Type Placement Machine

The advantages of using multi-head gantry machines in printed circuit board assembly are flexibility and efficiency combined with a relatively low acquisition price. However, the practical efficiency of this machine type depends on several difficult decisions that have to be made by a machine operator. In this paper two basic problems that have a significant effect on the use of a gantry machine are considered. The first problem deals with the pick-ups of the components using the nozzles in the placement arm and the second problem is about selecting suitable nozzles into the placement arm. The goal is to achieve a better understanding of the difficulty of these two problems and build up effective algorithms that can be used to solve problems in a restricted environment where the rest of the factors, such as the placement order of the components or the component to feeder slot assignment, are fixed.