Automatic Tire Changing of Large Mining Vehicles with Industrial Robots

Inhalt:
This paper presents a novel machine design with a robotic parallel platform for changing tires of large mining trucks. Changing these tires is a frequent service operation and is carried out by a team of 2-10 workers using heavy machinery. This operation has several technical challenges and puts the workers in a hazardous situation. The new robotic machine design introduced here aims at making this operation safer, more stable in terms of quality, and potentially faster. The machine comprises two industrial robots with tools for handling bolts and nuts, and a hydraulic parallel robotic platform which carries the two industrial robots and supports the tire. The scope of this paper is the automated handling of the nuts and bolts with robots and machine vision. This paper also describes other functional parts of this new type of machine design.