Robotics and Manufacturing Control Systems

Coursework Brief

Introduction

Industry robots have been widely used in the automotive industry and electrical equipment industry for assembly line and component handling (see Figure 1). This assignment aims to advance the skills necessary to design and develop an economic and efficient material handling system on the shopfloor.

Learning Outcome 1:  Fully understand the hardware and software of the industrial robot.
Learning Outcome 2: Critically analyse the robot tasks' environment and then design a robot based control system.

The Brief
A local company is producing the finished component shown in Figure 2. The component is machined out of a billet (see Figure 2) to achieve its final machined geometry. The manufacturing company has a function layout throughout its workshop. Since the component needs to be machined using the turning machine first, producing the outside profile and then needs to be transported to the milling machine to cut the key slot and flat section on ø90. As a result, considerable time is wasted in the transportation due to the current function layout.

Investigating possible improvements, the company is considering building a Flexible Manufacturing Cell (see Figure 1) which has one CNC TURNING machine, one CNC MILLING machine and one ABB robot with the necessary conveyer(s) as required.

You need to select the equipment to be used for FMC. It must include IRB120 robot. Based on the equipment you have to design the layout according to the manufacturing process sequence.

Produce the concept designs for the gripper and support fixture for the robot IRB120 to handle the billet and the finished component.

Design an interface system on IRB120 which includes system design, interface electrical circuit design with sensors, executors, etc.

Design a RobotStudio program/simulation to complete the machining of the component.