“Back in the late ’90s, it was hydroforming,” Sharpe said.
“Hydroform is where you blow up a tube to get a net shape and you can then make supposedly cheaper, lighter, stronger or more tailored car parts. But the problem is you can’t cut them with a stamping die, you need to trim them mechani- cally or with a laser.” Hydroforming was used on large pickup models. “Those
big programs drove volume,” he said. “By driving the volume, that allowed laser manufacturers to invest at lower cost.” More recently, the industry had used high-strength steels. Such steels are stronger than traditional steels, so less of the material is needed. That’s one strategy automakers are using to make vehicles lighter so they can meet federal fuel effi ciency standards. “Those you can’t really trim in a die,” Sharpe said. “If you trim them in a die, your die life…you’ll get a few hundred cycles.” As a result, he said, that has encouraged using robotic laser devices for cutting.
Other lightweighting strategies include using aluminum, which necessitates new ways of joining aluminum to steel while avoiding corrosion. That also has led to using robotic laser devices more, he said. “In the last few years, we’re seeing more of the US name- plates doing what the Europeans have been doing probably for a decade….taking aluminum structures and gluing it to a galvanized sheetmetal and riveting it to something else,” he said. “Those things are really coming around.” FANUC is involved with production of General Mo-
tors Co.’s Cadillac CT6, which uses a mix of aluminum and high-strength steels. The luxury four-door is the lead application for a GM-developed steel-to-aluminum spot welding process.
“Our collaboration with the robot manufacturers is typically as colleagues in industry. We are both manufacturers of enabling technologies.”
With lightweighting and using new materials, “It’s very
effective for people to apply robotics in those applications,” Sharpe said. “Lasers have gone down [in cost]. Material science is being proved and that allows them to apply the technologies together and make better vehicles for us.” Advancements in laser robotics have spurred increased use in aerospace, he said.
A FANUC robot equipped with a laser for welding applications.
“A lot of the stuff we’re doing is specifi c to hard facing the struts and the screws of a turbine,” Sharpe said. For repair work, a laser process “with powdered metal or a wire-fed system” can be used “to build those back up,” he said. Also, with composite materials, lasers can be used to clean surfaces before adhesives are applied, he said. Additive manufacturing also opens up opportunities for
increased use of laser robotic systems. While 3D printing produces parts directly from a digital design, many of these parts still have rough surfaces that require additional work. “Laser robotics can be used for processing: machining, smoothing, grinding or whatever,” Sharpe said. “We are experts at motion and motion planning and
control,” he said. “We also have an expertise in laser process and controls. Our scope is to bring that together to market but we also work together with others as customers require.” One of FANUC’s priorities is improving the precision of its
robots. With increased precision, Sharpe said, “the more ap- plications you can do.”
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