De-nest and present empty thin-walled yogurt cups/pots to the filling line

Yogurt and dairy-dessert lines that use pre-formed cups (rather than in-line thermoforming) must separate flimsy thermoformed plastic cups one-at-a-time from tightly nested stacks and place each into a filling-carousel pocket or conveyor puck upstream of dosing and lid sealing. The cups are thin-walled, lightweight, easily deformed or telescoped together, and the friction between nested cups varies with static, temperature and batch, so two cups can stick and feed as one. A robot must singulate the top cup, sense when it has cleanly separated from the stack, and seat it without crumpling the rim — a deformed rim ruins the downstream foil seal. This sits at the head of a high-throughput line where Danone runs cobots to relieve operators, and a fumble that jams the carousel stops the whole line. No Danone-specific signal exists for robotizing this task — it is inferred from the product/line type. We identified this through our own research; we have not confirmed the specifics with the customer directly. This page is our researched read — a starting point for that conversation.