For workers, manual pick and place should be one of the most repetitive tasks today. Boring and tedious operations can easily lead to worker errors, and highly repetitive body movements can easily lead to physical strain and injury. Starting the application of collaborative robots with pick-and-place tasks is a good start for reducing repetitive labor for workers. Pick-and-place tasks involve picking up a workpiece and placing it in another location. In practice, this operation can be utilized to pick up items from a pallet or conveyor belt for packaging or sorting. Picking from conveyor belts also requires advanced vision system support. Collaborative robots in the pick-and-place category require an end-effector to grasp the object, either a gripper or a vacuum suction cup device
2. Equipment care requires workers to stand for long periods of time in front of CNC machine tools, injection molding machines, or other similar equipment in order to keep an eye on the machine's operational needs, such as changing tools or replenishing raw materials. This process can be time-consuming and incredibly tedious for operators.
Using collaborative robots not only frees up employees, but a single collaborative robot can maintain multiple machines, increasing productivity. Collaborative robots in the caregiving category require device-specific I/O docking hardware. This hardware prompts the robot when to move on to the next cycle of production or when raw materials need to be replenished.
3. Packaging and palletizing products is a subcategory within the pick and place category. Products need to be properly prepared for shipment before they leave the factory floor, including shrink-wrapping, case assembly and loading, case organization, and placing pallets ready for shipment. This type of work is highly repetitive and contains a number of small loads that are well suited for replacing manual labor with collaborative robots. Rapid product changeovers are business critical for volume manufacturing companies with a mix of high and low production volumes. This application requires the use of conveyor tracking to synchronize robot and conveyor motion. For products with inconsistent shapes, the application also requires the incorporation of a vision system.
4. Machining is any process that requires the use of tools to manipulate a workpiece. Collaborative robots are commonly used in glue handling, dispensing and welding processes. Each of these machining tasks requires the use of tools to repeatedly complete a fixed path. These tasks require a significant time investment in training if new employees are used to achieve the finished product. With collaborative robots, on the other hand, they can be replicated to other robots by completing the programming on one robot. Collaborative robots also solve the problem of accuracy and repetition of worker finish. Traditional welding robot systems usually require operators with very specialized knowledge of robot programming and welding.
5. Manual finishing operations require the use of hand tools and are often laborious. Vibration from the tools can also lead to operator injury. Collaborative robots can provide the strength, repeatability and accuracy required for finishing. The types of finishing that robots can perform include polishing, grinding, and deburring. Robots can be taught to perform the appropriate actions either by manual instruction or computer programming. Collaborative robots have a force control system that makes the robot more durable. Finishing of parts of different sizes can be accomplished through end-effector or built-in force sensing devices.
6. Finally, collaborative robots can also inspect parts for quality. This process usually involves a full inspection of the finished part, taking high-resolution pictures of the precision-machined part for inspection, and comparing the part to a CAD model for confirmation. Fixing multiple high-resolution cameras on a collaborative robot can automate the quality inspection process and provide fast results. High-quality inspections with collaborative robots