Page 37 - MetalForming Magazine May 2022

Cobot Bin Picking Is Top Pick for Assembly Application
lization and productivity on the pre- viously manually attended lines.
The solution revolved around 24/7 manufacturing lines at Cheraw that produce a variable cam timing system (VCT) designed to improve perform- ance and reduce emissions in internal combustion engines. Previously, four operators oversaw and fed the assem- bly lines, ensuring the accurate ori- entation of components’ complex geometries for successive processes. The location of the lines far from other equipment prevented operators from working in other areas. And, operators leaving for breaks or other reasons would halt production.
Schaeffler, like many manufacturers, faces difficulty in hiring and retaining employees for these repetitive manual operations.
“We needed to increase our output on these lines and somehow create more efficiency,” recalls Mike Reed, VCT production leader. “The 8 hr./day of performing the same job can be cumbersome and boring.”
Automating the repetitive process would allow Schaeffler to reduce down- time and lost production, and allow for operator allocation to other processes. The Schaeffler team sought automation on this line previously, but
not until witnessing ActiNav at a tradeshow did a solution present itself. Soon after the show, Bruno Waldmann, SMB mechanical design group leader, and his project team quickly reached out to Cimtec Automation, a UR dis- tributor. Within days, ActiNav was demonstrating successful picking and placing of Schaeffler’s stampings, uti- lizing a key advantage of the ActiNav system: its ability to autonomously pick parts, randomly oriented in a bin, and accurately place them.
Designed for machine-loading applications, UR’s ActiNav, part of the UR+ Application Kit portfolio, syn- chronously handles vision processing, collision-free motion planning, bin picking and autonomous real-time cobot control. The kit includes the ActiNav autonomous motion module; a 3D sensor placed above the bin; user interface; alignment marker; all cables, screws and brackets; and UR’s e-series cobot—UR5e, UR10e or UR16e model. Schaeffler employs a UR5e cobot, with reach to 850 mm and 5-kg payload capacity, in this application.
Small-Footprint Automation Hits Cycle-Time Goal
Using the new ActiNav station, installed in 2021, an operator simply
dumps components into multiple bins and then moves to another process. This provides the system with about 2 hr. of work without requiring an oper- ator. With parts in the bins, the ActiNav 3D sensor scans a bin, which allows the system to calculate appropriate picks for the cobot. After picking, the cobot picks and places a face-up part directly on the conveyor, and places face-down parts into a reorientation station that flips the part to allow the cobot to repick it and place it accurately on the conveyor. Then, the conveyor transfers placed parts to the next assembly cell. An empty bin triggers the cobot to initiate a bin-change sequence, enabling it to continue pick- ing from the next bin, without operator intervention.
“This solution allows us to minimize the footprint and eliminate a lot of peripheral equipment,” Parker says, “by picking parts directly from the bin and placing them into the carrier or on the pallet that then goes into the assembly machine.”
One challenge for this application: the ability to meet a cycle-time require- ment for the assembly process.
“When we started researching this project, we looked for regularity—some- thing that could meet the needed cycle
The red lighting denotes scanning of parts, which in turns provides information that a cobot uses to correctly orient parts for pick-up by a downstream assembly operation.
A lightweight end effector grabs lightweight stamped parts—ideal for a cobot application. And, because cobots play nice with humans, Schaeffler can bring in associates to check on opera- tions or help as needed without sacrificing productivity.
34 MetalForming/May 2022
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