Rapid hardware and software reconfiguration in a robotic workcell

Abstract

In an increasingly competitive manufacturing industry it is becoming ever more important to rapidly react to changes in market demands. In order to satisfy these requirements, it is crucial that automated manufacturing processes are flexible and can be adapted to new production requirements quickly. In this paper we present a novel automatically reconfigurable robot workcell that addresses the issues of flexible manufacturing. The proposed workcell is reconfigurable in terms of hardware and software. The hardware elements of the workcell, both those selected off-the-shelf and those developed specifically for the system, allow for fast cell setup and reconfiguration, while the software aims to provide a modular, robotindependent, ROS-based programming environment. While the proposed workcell is being developed in such a way as to address the needs of production-oriented SMEs where batch sizes are relatively small, it will also be of interest to enterprises with larger production lines since it additionally targets high performance in terms of speed, interoperability of robotic elements, and ease of use.

A SysML representation of the wireless factory work cell

“…The main advantage of reconfigurable work-cells lies in the flexibility of reconfiguration of work-cell components to adapt to varying production requirements where the assembly of the work cell is optimized for each specific task [14]. In the work-cell that hosts robots, robots are installed therein to allow for autonomous configuration within their workspace [22, 26, 47]. Approaches and performance criteria for reconfigurable robotic systems have recent developments in control architectures to achieve various levels of reconfigurability [25].…”

Base Frame Calibration of a Reconfigurable Multi-robot System with Kinesthetic Guidance

“…We conducted our experiments in the workcell described in [12]. We used two UR-10 robots and coupled their end effectors with two Destaco TP-30 tool adapter modules, which were tightly screwed together, as seen in Fig.…”

“…In our previous publication, we introduced a reconfigurable robot workcell, aimed to tackle the previously discussed issues of robot adoption in SMEs manufacturing processes -ReconCell [12]. The developed cell is reconfigurable in both hardware and software aspects.…”

SwarmRail: A Novel Overhead Robot System for Indoor Transport and Mobile Manipulation

“…According to reports of leading research institutes and consulting companies, the factory of the future will be characterized by a highly flexible, modular, dynamically reconfigurable and multidirectional layout of the plant structure as well as an intensive use of digital technologies such as smart and collaborative robots [1], [2]. The focus shifts from fixed production lines to modular conveyors or mobile robotic carrier units like the robot presented in [3] that move workpieces or component parts to reconfigurable robotic workcells [4], [5], as also illustrated in DLR's vision of the factory of the future in Fig. 1.…”