Imprensa Nacional – Casa de Moeda, S. A. presents a particularly ambitious challenge to robotic manipulation: the dexterous handling of passports. The production of electronic passports is constrained by strict international rules and recommendations to guarantee the security of critical data and access to data of the documents. The required rigorous quality control will be automated to reduce human error and increase productivity.
The rigorous quality control process requires unwavering attention, but repetitive and monotonous operations quickly tire human workers. Collaborating with a robot that automates the quality control process will lead to an accelerated process and lower error rates.
Passport booklets are composed of pages with three different materials and flexibilities: the cover (hard cover, highly rigid), the biographical page (paper laminated with polycarbonate layers, medium flexibility) and other booklet pages (paper with high flexibility). Besides identifying and appropriately manipulating these pages, as well as reading information from the passport, the robot is also required to finish quality control by placing it in an envelope and labelling it correctly.
Below, find some photos of a Portuguese passport, indicating the challenges of automated quality control.
