Design, Implementation, and Simulation of an Ultra High Speed Robot Cell for Pick and Place Operations

Abstract

Industrial automated processes have led to an increase in the efficiency of manufacturing systems. Nowadays, factories require higher quality standards and more flexible ways of production to attend the rapidly changing customer demand. Robots play a significant role in the implementation of automation technology; they provide high performance in speed and precision, take over repetitive tasks from workers, and prevent humans from taking risks derived from the production line. One of the most common tasks within the factory scope lies in picking items up and dropping them off in the desired place, as part of a packaging process, a conveyor dragged item management or workpiece assembly. In order to provide a high-speed execution of this task, parallel robots find no competitors when it comes to performing this kind of operations. They offer fast movement execution for lightweight item handling, the same conditions that frequently appear in manufacturing scenarios.

This thesis aims to demonstrate the suitability of parallel robots for pick and place operations by the design and simulation of a robot cell for a specific task of pick and place. The hardware manipulation involves robot connection wiring, the integration of a pneumatic system that provides vacuum gripping and external module connectivity. Software section defines the offline programming of the robot and the creation of a web application that serves as an interface with the user for the task development.

Finally, 3D printing is presented as a useful tool for rapid prototyping of computer aided designs, as it offers a wide range of possibilities in terms of geometry and design process improvement. Additive manufacturing belongs to a new age technology that will undoubtedly be part of the future industry and whose utility for specific task-oriented projects is demonstrated in this document.