Patent ID: 7201032

Claim:
A metal sheet-receiving system for receiving metal sheets and feeding a metal sheet-folding machine, particularly a folding press, comprising at least one manipulator for seizing and moving metal sheet parts with a gripper head fitted with gripping means; an electronic controlling device for controlling the movements of the manipulator; as well as a measuring system for determining the position of the metal sheet parts, wherein the measuring system is formed by an optoelectronic measuring device comprising an image acquisition means, and a transillumination platform, wherein the transillumination platform is structured and arranged to receive one of the metal sheet parts gripped by the gripping means and moved by the manipulator onto the transillumination platform prior to the metal sheet part being fed into the sheet-folding machine, wherein the image acquisition means is structured and arranged to acquire an image of an outline of a portion of the metal sheet part on the transillumination platform and to detect a position of the metal sheet part with respect to the transillumination platform; and the electronic controlling device storing outline data for metal sheet parts and being operable to make a comparison between the image and position acquired by the image acquisition means and the stored outline data and to compute a new gripping position for the gripper head or a corrected position for the metal sheet part, and to cause the manipulator to re-position the gripper head in the new gripping position or to move the metal sheet part into said corrected position based on said comparison, such that the manipulator can feed the metal sheet part in a desired position into the sheet-folding machine.