Robot Filler — fully automatic robotic filling machine for drums and IBCs
The most automated machine we build. The operator does not intervene in the cycle, does not enter the filling area, and does not teach the machine anything — it locates the containers by itself. Besides filling, it uncaps, caps and seals depending on the tools fitted.
It is also the machine behind the largest fully robotic filling plant we have built, for BPCL in Kochi, India. See the project.
Advanced series · Fully automatic · Containers on pallet
Is this the machine you need?
Yes, if you want a filling point with nobody standing at it; your containers arrive on pallets; and formats vary enough that a fixed-geometry machine would need adjusting between runs.
No, if one container format runs all day and nothing moves on the pallet — the SP3 does the same work with simpler mechanics. And no, if an operator at the station is not the problem you are solving.
Every AiCROV machine handles virtually any industrial liquid — viscous, sticky, foaming, flammable, corrosive. What changes with the product is the nozzle, the materials in contact with it and how the dose is controlled. Not the model.
What decides the model is the container format, the throughput you need, and how much of the handling you want the machine to do. That is why our range is not organized by industry. A detergent plant and a lubricants plant filling the same drum at the same rate buy the same machine.
How it works
1. Filling recipe and cycle parameters are selected on the operator panel.
2. Pallets of empty containers are placed on the infeed conveyor.
3. Start is commanded and the cycle continues automatically: the system positions the pallet on the scale, machine vision locates the container and its bunghole, and the robot performs the fitted operations — uncapping, filling, capping, sealing.
4. When a container is finished, the sequence repeats with the next until the pallet is complete.
5. The full pallet is discharged, the next enters, and the cycle continues with no intervention.
6. Full pallets are collected at the end of the line.
Robot Filler – Peracetic Acid: IBCs, 200 L Drums & Jerrycans | Christeyns Belgium Workshop Test
A Robot Filler for Christeyns in Belgium, tested in our workshop before delivery: peracetic acid into IBCs, 200-litre drums and jerrycans, all with the same robot.
More videos of this machine
Other installations and configurations, filmed in our workshop and at customer sites.
Robot Filler for Drums & IBCs — Food & Pharma GMP Line | Single Robot | AiCROV
Robot Filler X2 – IBC & Drum Filling + CIP Cleaning | IFF–Danisco Iowa (Workshop)
Complete GMP Filling Project — Jerrycans, Drums & IBCs, Food & Pharma | AiCROV
Filling modes: two assemblies
Two filling assemblies are available, and the choice is made when the machine is ordered: the assembly is a physical part of the machine, not a setting. Both are made of sandblasted AISI 304 stainless steel; the nozzle is AISI 316L as standard, with other materials available for demanding products.
Under bunghole filling
Normally used for products that do not foam and are neither flammable nor explosive, including dense and viscous products. The nozzle descends until it is just inside the container and fills from that position. This assembly fills under the bunghole only.
Immersion filling
Normally used for foaming products, and for flammable or explosive products. The nozzle descends to the bottom of the container, and the filling recipe chooses one of three ways of filling:
- Rising with the product: the nozzle opens at the bottom and rises as the container fills. The control calculates the product height inside the container and keeps the nozzle at that level, stopping at the top of the container, without leaving it, until the fill is complete.
- From the bottom: the nozzle stays at its lowest position for the whole fill. For extremely foaming products.
- Under bunghole: the nozzle enters just past the bunghole and fills from there, as the under-bunghole assembly does.
If your range includes foaming or flammable products, or may include them later, choose the immersion assembly: it covers every way of filling.
Machine architecture
The equipment is built around an industrial anthropomorphic robot carrying the filling unit and the tools. Compared with a Cartesian solution, the robot reaches any point of the pallet with the orientation each operation requires, which is what lets it work on containers of different formats without mechanical adjustments.
The tool holder has four positions, one occupied by the filling unit, so up to three additional tools can be fitted.
Weighing is by the weighing conveyor of the filling station, with the terminal integrated into the control system. Pallets move along a motorised conveyor line, selected and quoted separately.
3D machine vision — and why it looks at one container at a time
Bunghole location is performed by 3D machine vision with a structured light camera, included as standard. It is what replaces manual position teaching, and the machine does not work without it.
The system takes one image per container, not one of the whole pallet. The camera photographs the container about to be processed, its coordinates are computed, the cycle runs on it, and only then does it move to the next. Every container is measured immediately before being handled.
This matters because during uncapping, filling or capping a container can shift and drag the ones next to it. A system that photographs the whole pallet at the start computes every coordinate at once — and from the first displacement onwards, all of them are wrong. The equipment keeps working on positions that no longer exist: the nozzle descends outside the bunghole and spills, the capping tool strikes the rim of the container, and the machine ends up stopped.
Measuring container by container, that failure mode does not occur.
Why a series-production robot
Using a series-production industrial robot has a consequence that goes beyond kinematics. More than half of the technology in this machine is a commercial product manufactured by the thousands every year, with the robot manufacturer’s own service network in practically any country, spare parts available, and trained personnel outside AiCROV.
For a plant far from Tarragona, this means the core element of the machine does not depend on a single supplier or on a one-off design. It is a platform proven in tens of thousands of installations, with local support.
Inert gas filling (optional)
Any AiCROV machine can be supplied to fill under an inert atmosphere. It is fitted as an accessory, and it touches the nozzle, the control cabinet and the recipe.
How it is built. The nozzle carries a small passage through which the gas flows. A dedicated solenoid valve in the main control cabinet drives that flow, so the gas is part of the filling cycle rather than something an operator does alongside it.
When the gas flows is a recipe parameter, not a fixed setting. You choose to inert before the nozzle opens, during filling, after the target weight is reached, or any combination of the three — and you set how many seconds each phase lasts. Different products need different answers, and the machine stores one per product.
Why a small amount of gas is enough. Nitrogen is heavier than air. A short burst into the bottom of an empty container leaves a layer of nitrogen sitting there, and filling then begins inside that atmosphere rather than in air. As the product level rises, the nitrogen is pushed up ahead of it and stays between the liquid and the container opening. A little more at the end, before the container is capped, and the product has never touched air.
It is not always nitrogen. The gas is chosen for the product; nitrogen is simply the most common.
Inerting by overpressure is the other route: capping assemblies that pressurize the inside of the container to a few millibars immediately before the cap goes on.
And the case that is not about product quality at all. Filling a flammable product into a metal container can generate a spark as the liquid starts to flow. Displace the oxygen first and there is nothing to ignite. On some installations that is the whole reason the inerting is there.
The nozzle is interchangeable. It can be replaced by a different model or diameter without modifying the tool holder, which means the machine can be adapted to a different product or a different container years after it was bought. How nozzles are cleaned →
AiCROVFill®
A software ecosystem, not a single function. AiCROVFill® is the whole of AiCROV’s filling software, built around one aim: to fill as accurately and as fast as the product allows — efficient in time, effective in the result — and always safely.
Container position control. The working height is adjusted by motor to the height detected on each container, so the nozzle always enters at the correct level.
Final weight control and top-up. Once the nominal net weight is reached, the nozzle closes. For a set interval afterwards the system keeps watching the settled weight, and if it has fallen below the nominal value it reopens and completes the dose — as many times as needed. This is the difference between a container that reads correct at the moment of closing and one that reads correct on the customer’s scale.
Compensation for the submerged lance. In immersion filling the nozzle can stay below the product surface — because the operator has set it to fill under the level to keep a foaming product quiet, or because, near the top of a full container, it cannot rise any further without leaving the opening. A submerged lance displaces its own volume of product, and the scale reads that displacement as weight. Close the nozzle at the nominal value, draw the lance out, and the container is suddenly tens or hundreds of grams short — a fill that looked perfect now fails the tolerance. AiCROVFill® knows where the lance is: its position is controlled, so the volume it occupies inside the product is known at every moment. The control calculates the weight that volume accounts for and doses exactly that much more before closing, so the net weight is right after the lance comes out, not only while it is still in.
Automatic compensation of the product still falling after the valve closes. When the valve closes, some product is still on its way into the container. How much depends on the machine, and on conditions outside it: supply pressure, flow rate, product temperature and viscosity. If the recipe carries a fixed value for that product, AiCROVFill® uses it. If that value is set to zero, the machine learns it: container after container it measures the result and moves the cut-off point by itself, so the batch settles on the nominal weight and stays there as conditions drift.
Recipe-based operation. Filling parameters are stored per product and per container format. Changing reference is a selection on the panel, not a readjustment of the machine.
Built from parts you can buy yourself
This machine is built with industrial components from globally distributed brands — control, pneumatics, sensors and weighing elements — with no proprietary electronics or firmware anywhere in the control chain.
This matters on the day something fails. You source the spare part yourself, in your own market, at market price. Your maintenance staff work on platforms they already know. You do not wait for a shipment from Tarragona to replace a component that is on a shelf twenty minutes from your plant.
It is a deliberate design decision, and we think a machine that holds your plant hostage is not a machine you should buy.
Safety and compliance
The machine is designed and manufactured in Europe, to European machinery safety legislation, and carries the CE marking. That is our starting point for every market we ship to. Outside the EU, most markets mirror that legislation through a transposition or an equivalent framework of essential health and safety requirements, so AiCROV starts from the same design and the same risk assessment everywhere, and adapts the marking, the declaration and the documentation to the regime of the country of installation.
The design follows the harmonised framework customary in the sector: risk assessment and risk reduction to EN ISO 12100, safety-related parts of control systems to EN ISO 13849-1, electrical equipment to EN 60204-1, emergency stop to EN ISO 13850.
The risk assessment is carried out on the configuration actually supplied, not on a generic model, and the resulting measures are built into the mechanical design, the electrical design and the control software.
As an automatic machine that works with no operator inside it, the perimeter safety enclosure is part of the supply and is not optional: fencing with interlocked access doors and photoelectric barriers with muting at container entry and exit.
- Emergency stop — cuts power and pneumatic pressure and stops the robot and the conveyors. Reset is manual and deliberate.
- Access interlocking — opening a door stops the cycle; the equipment cannot restart while it is open.
- Passive nozzle lock.
- Safe behaviour on failure — no residual robot movement, no conveyor drift, no product flow.
Every AiCROV machine and every AiCROV line can be supplied in an explosion proof version. Where the equipment is going into an area with a risk of explosive atmosphere, protection is engineered as a specific part of the project and extends to the whole assembly — structure, stations, tool holder and fitted tools, weighing system and control cabinet — under the certification scheme that applies in the country of installation: ATEX in Europe, IECEx in many other markets, NEC in the United States. Explosion proof versions are designed for Zone 1 or Zone 2 hazardous areas, or the equivalent Class I, Division 1 or 2 under NEC, depending on the project.
On an automatic line this is the difference between a compliant installation and a machine that cannot be commissioned. A protected filling head bolted to an unprotected gantry is not an explosion proof machine.
Explosion proof filling machines →
Connection parameters — voltage, frequency, neutral and earthing arrangement, electrical and compressed air connection types — and the operator panel language are defined with you during order engineering, in accordance with the regulations and the usual practice of the country of installation. The starting point is always the CE-compliant design; the local requirements are built in from the start of the order, not retrofitted afterwards.
Technical specifications
| Type | Fully automatic, weigh filling, anthropomorphic robot |
| Series | Advanced |
| Containers | Canisters, drums and IBCs on a pallet, 20 to 1,500 litres (5 to 400 gal) |
| Throughput | up to 120 canisters/hour (20 L) · 65 drums/hour (220 L) · 20 IBC/hour (1,200 L) |
| Filling accuracy | ±0.1% of the nominal fill (to be confirmed for each case) |
| Weight scale resolution | ± 250 g |
| Inert gas filling | Available as an accessory |
| Filling assembly | Under bunghole, or immersion (the immersion assembly also fills under bunghole or from the bottom, selected by recipe) |
| Container location | 3D machine vision, structured light, one image per container — standard |
| Operations | Filling · uncapping · capping · sealing, by tool fitted |
| Tool holder | 4 positions, one occupied by the filling unit |
| Power | 3×380 VAC, 50–60 Hz, <18 kW (to be confirmed per project) |
| Air pressure | 6 bar (other pressures on request) |
| Working temperature | −10 °C to +45 °C |
| Product temperature | 0 °C to +130 °C |
| Product connection | 1½” male camlock |
| Weight | 1,400 kg (to be confirmed per project) |
| Safety enclosure | Included, not optional |
| Explosion proof version | Available, whole assembly |
Filling throughput is set by the product and the container, not by the model: when they only fill, the SP1, SP2, SP25, SP3 and Robot Filler reach the same cadence, around 60–65 drums per hour. What changes between models is the level of automation. When the machine also uncaps and caps the container, as the SP3 and the Robot Filler can, the cadence is lower.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the Robot Filler find the bungholes?
With 3D machine vision using a structured light camera, included as standard. Nobody teaches it positions.
Why does it photograph one container at a time instead of the whole pallet?
Because a container can shift during uncapping, filling or capping and drag its neighbours. A single image of the whole pallet computes every coordinate at once, and one displacement invalidates all of them. Measuring each container immediately before handling it removes that failure mode.
What is the difference between the Robot Filler and the SP3?
The motion technology. The robot reaches any point of the pallet at any orientation, which lets it handle mixed container formats without mechanical adjustment. The SP3’s Cartesian gantry is simpler and does the same operations on consistent formats.
Who services the robot?
The robot is a series-production industrial unit with its manufacturer’s own service network in practically any country. More than half the technology in the machine is a commercial product with local support and available spares.
Can it fill flammable products?
Yes. The explosion proof version covers the whole assembly — robot, tool holder and fitted tools — under the certification scheme applicable at the site.
Not sure this is the right machine?
Tell us what you fill, into what container, and how many per hour. We will tell you which model fits — and we will tell you when none of ours does.
Related projects
Real installations of our filling machines in different industries.
Two Robot Fillers for IBCs and Drums, with Nozzle Cleaning in Place — IFF–Danisco, Iowa, USA
IFF–Danisco’s food-ingredient plant in Iowa needed to fill IBCs and drums at high output, with no operator handling the product.
Robot Filler for peracetic acid — IBCs, drums and jerrycans for Christeyns, Belgium
Christeyns needed to fill peracetic acid, corrosive and prone to foaming, and other acid and alkaline products into IBCs, drums and jerrycans from one line.
Turnkey GMP filling plant for lactic acid — jerrycans, drums and IBCs in one clean room, Barcelona area, Spain
A lactic acid producer for the food and pharmaceutical industries needed to fill 25-litre jerrycans, 200-litre drums and IBCs inside one GMP clean room.
Robot Filler in an enclosed, extracted cell for acids and bases — drums and IBCs, Italy
A water-treatment chemicals producer in northern Italy needed to fill corrosive acids and bases into drums and IBCs with no operator near the product.
Four Explosion Proof Robot Filler Lines for Flammable Petrochemicals — BPCL, Kochi, India
BPCL needed very high output of highly flammable propylene derivatives, in a plant where the whole filling area is a hazardous zone.
AiCROV’s first Robot Filler — GMP drum and IBC line with eight dedicated nozzles, Spain
A chemical plant near Barcelona, working to GMP, needed to fill many products into drums and IBCs with no operator handling the product.
Tell us about your product and containers
We will contact you