Ultra-Flexible Production Systems for Automated Factories
Conference: ISR 2016 - 47st International Symposium on Robotics
06/21/2016 - 06/22/2016 at München, Germany
Proceedings: ISR 2016
Pages: 6Language: englishTyp: PDF
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Authors:
Boca, Remus; Fuhlbrigge, Thomas; Staab, Harald; Zhang, George; Choi, Sang; Martinez, Carlos; Eakins, William; Rossano, Gregory (ABB Corporate Research Center, Windsor, CT, USA)
Nidamarthi, Srinivas (ABB Inc, Robotics, Auburn Hills, MI, USA)
Abstract:
Conveyor based transportation systems are used in today manufacturing environments. The main concept we introduce in this paper is using mobile platforms to move parts, tools and fixtures between workstations in a manufacturing environment instead of conveyors. A conveyor-based production system is a fix transportation system, hard mounted and not reconfigurable, any change in the conveyors path is costly, time-consuming and difficult. Mobile platforms allow for a more flexible manufacturing environment as it only requires a change in the software to reroute the transportations paths and accommodate the changes to the production flow and workstations. This concept paper addresses two objectives: 1) describe some of the existing mobile platform used in industry today 2) introduce the concepts and a simulation of the ultra-flexible production system.