LASER ROBOTICS ‘More Stable’
One company that has worked with FANUC is Prima Power Laserdyne. The two collaborated on a system for an aerospace customer that VanderWert declined to identify, where a FANUC robot loaded and unloaded parts. “Normally one doesn’t think of low-volume production as a case for robotic load and unload,” said Prima’s VanderW- ert. “The customer said he wanted it.” That’s because the customer found a “machine went underutilized. Invariably the operator would be on break when the part was fi n- ished.” The customer “wanted to automate the load and unload of parts.”
with,” he said in a follow-up email. IoT will probably fi rst help with preventative maintenance “so there’s no real hiccup in product coming off the laser.”
‘Less Complex’ Trumpf’s Hromadka said “the single biggest improvement” is how “lasers are simpler to use, maintenance free and less complex.” Both the laser and robots “are being driven by the same thing in industry for 24/7 uptime. They’re driven by the same industrial motivations.” Operators “will receive a different type of training because of the sophistication of these systems,” he said. “We’ll see the needs for techni- cians that have a higher skill level. Automation cuts back the need for training in manual tasks but the system is more sophisticated and so the job training will need to address that as well,” Hromadka said. “I don’t think there will be a cutback on the amount of training.”
Software Improvements ABB’s Hixon, on the other hand, said, “Software has been the biggest improvement with respect to laser applications.” “Robotic offl ine programming
A UR5 robot from Universal Robots with a Rofi n 20-W fi ber laser engraves anodized aluminum business cards at Canadian manufacturer The Ringlord (
www.theringlord.com).
Prima Industrie, Prima Power’s parent, originally started by making articulated-arm robots in the late 1970s for inspection applications. Prima Power Laserdyne entered into making laser systems using Cartesian robots with three linear axes and two rotary axes. “Laser sources today are more stable,” VanderWert said. “The machines are more stable.” Robotic laser systems also will be affected by Internet of Things technology that enables machines to communicate with each other and allows operators to monitor equipment via smartphones and tablets. “We’re very early in that. In new machines, you can collect a lot of data that most customers don’t know what to do
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software has improved the quality of programming that was previously relied on by point-to-point program- ming,” he said. At the same time, he said, “Motion algorithms have
improved over the years to fi ne tune speeds and accelerations while minimizing positional error.” More improvements are expected in coming years. “A big advancement on the horizon is the robot learning by doing,” Hixon said. “Integration into self-calibration tech- niques and self-learning to optimize performance are areas where robots will continue to improve.”
Hixon also said training is important but should be done by a “technology champion” at the customer. “So rather than a whole staff of trained employees the
newer robotic technology is easier to learn through hands-on experience. But a clear technology leader still needs to be part of the equation.”
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