Robot and conveyor automate as many as nine processes at London insect farm

LAC Logistics Automation is behind the installation and design of a robot, conveyor and vision combination set to automate the lifecycle of insects for protein markets.

Under the railway arches near London Bridge station, Entocycle is an insect technology company, developing systems to automate and accelerate insect farming as an industry. In order to attract investors and potential customers, Entocycle wanted to create a ‘Centre for Insect Technology’ combining R&D with, effectively, a sales demonstration showroom.

The LAC system consists of highly controllable zero-line-pressure roller conveyors, an incline belt conveyor, pallet input and output stations, weighing modules, sensors and controls. Central to the design is an ABB 4600 six-axis robot with specially designed grippers to handle different crate sizes.

The stainless steel and anodised aluminium robot arm conforms to food hygiene requirements. The installation had to fit around low ceiling arches and pillars, and is housed inside mesh guarding to protect staff working in close proximity.

Operations divide between daily routines to do with breeding and a monthly production phase over a three-day period.

"The automated solution from LAC has provided us with the perfect platform to showcase our breeding and production processes to potential investors, farming and waste sector customers,” says Entocycle marketing director Jude Bliss. “Importantly, this also demonstrates how a previously labour-intensive process can be fully automated.”

He adds: “The location highlights our ability to breed and produce large quantities of insects in small spaces, but this modular design from LAC is equally capable of upscaling to megafarms.”

Breeding-related operations include depalletising, positioning and dosing 16 nursery crates with a weighed quantity of specialist feed, then the counting out of larvae eggs using an integrated camera system, with a reject mechanism for non-compliant crates.

Once the small nursery crates have been dosed and stored, the next phase of breeding operations involves the transfer of the growing insect eggs to a larger adult crate, allowing more food to be added to promote continued growth. Different grippers are used for the larger crates.

At the production stage, crates of fully-matured insects are transferred by the robot and tipped out through an integrated funnel on to a screen hopper with a steep incline belt, leading to a shaker machine which separates any waste from the insects.

LAC’s bespoke technology includes integrated pushers to move each crate exactly in line with the dosing machine, and blades to ensure each crate stops in precisely the correct position. Belt pop-ups transfer each crate 90 degrees to a straight-line conveyor, and then drop down to allow standard conveying.

0115 975 3300

www.lacconveyors.co.uk