AUTOMATION & ROBOTICS
FULLY CHARGED FOR INSPECTION A
nyone who has sat at the wheel of an electric car will know it is quite different from driving a conventional internal combustion vehicle. From regenerative braking to planning journeys around charging ranges, most of us will get used to owning and driving electric vehicles (EVs) within the next 10 years.
Total sales of electric and plug-in hybrid cars are predicted to top 30 million globally by 2030, the date when buying a new polluting petrol or diesel car becomes illegal in the UK. While China leads the way in both electric vehicle manufacture and consumption, European Automotive OEMs are catching up. Driven by both consumer demand and regulation, the market is growing robustly, almost undeterred by the disruption of the pandemic. This explosion in manufacturing requires an electric vehicle (EV) battery production infrastructure to support it. Currently, some 70% of all EV batteries are manufactured in China, but, with new manufacturing plants like Britishvolt’s proposed gigafactory at Blyth in Northumberland, growth in European production of lithium- ion battery packs is likely to lead to significant opportunities for the Automotive supply chain.
QUALITY ASSURANCE EV batteries must meet extremely high standards, so quality assurance is critical at every stage of the manufacturing and assembly process. High quality not only underpins the efficiency of the battery system, it can also optimise the range of an electric car, a key market driver for new consumers. High standards of manufacture are also a prerequisite for safety, as recalls or even failures such as vehicle fires must be avoided. Equally damaging to an OEM’s reputation would be any undetected defects which later compromise the battery’s service life, leading to the need for early replacement. The battery packs for all-electric drive EVs typically contain a hundred or more individual cells firstly grouped into cell stacks, then assembled into a smaller number of modules together with all the necessary electrical and electronic connections and battery management system, then finally encased within into an aluminium or steel battery-pack housing. Precision, non-contact quality inspection using sensors is needed to validate each stage of the process. It is a typical example of where early
inspection in a manufacturing process minimises wastage; non-contact defection of defects later in the production process is likely to be significantly more costly.
But automated quality inspection of EV batteries does not end at the point of sale. In China, battery swap stations, where a battery can be exchanged rather than charged up, are common, for example. There will also be a need for vision inspection and robot guidance technologies in battery recycling plants as the market matures.
STACKING PROCESS
One example of the critical importance of non- contact quality inspection is in the correct stacking of electrode and separator sheets in the battery cell. A cell will be defective if the robot gripper picks up more than one of the wafer-thin films simultaneously. If the sheets adhere to one another, a short circuit or a loss in battery performance will result. Machines feature rejection trays for the double layers, which enable a quick restart of the process. SICK offers several non-contact sensing technologies for double layer detection of electrodes using intelligent inductive technology, optical fibre technology or ultrasonic sensing.
3D machine vision is a particular focus for EV battery inspection. SICK’s new Ranger3 streaming camera and the configurable SICK TriSpector 1000 vision sensor are well-suited to automotive EV battery inspections, for example, to check for the completeness of assembled components within the battery module or to undertake complex 3D inspections of welded seams or plug connectors. SICK has also developed custom image processing software packages, using its AppSpace development ‘ecosystem’ to target the EV battery sector. Indeed, more than two thirds of SICK’s Chinese customers use the firm’s image processing software. Opportunities for AI Deep Learning software to optimise more challenging inspections are also expected.
3D VISION ‘OUT OF THE BOX’ For end-user production teams and machine builders alike, SICK’s emphasis is always on providing hardware and software solutions that are as close to ‘plug and play’ as possible. One example is an “Out of the Box” solution for detecting foreign
objects on the EV assembly line immediately before the battery is connected to the car body. Should a foreign object, even a tiny screw or washer, end up on the battery surface, it could cause scratches, damage or a puncture. Such small objects, down to a couple of millimetres in size, are difficult to see, especially as they are often the same colour as the metallic surface of the battery housing.
SICK’s High Voltage Battery Inspection System is supplied with all the hardware and custom- developed software to make it easy to configure SICK’s Ranger3 high-definition camera technology and set up a dedicated inspection process. It comprises all the elements needed, including SICK Ranger3 cameras with integrated lasers to enable image acquisition to profile the surface of the battery using laser triangulation.
SICK also supplies a frame unit for cameras, along with trigger sensors and encoders. Each individual camera system generates a separate digital 3D scan, which is processed and evaluated in the SICK programmable Sensor Integration Device to generate an output, together with results visualised on an integral HMI.
With a core system starting with two SICK Ranger3 cameras, systems progress up to four double-heads using eight Ranger3s. Even if foreign objects are the same colour as the battery surface, the laser profiling image acquisition assures a highly reliable result. The system is similarly robust against changes in surface texture or shadows, where brightness fluctuation might cause problems for other inspection methods.
COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE Beyond 2030, as the market matures, the rate of growth in EV production is expected to slow. Developing optimised production processes in the interim will be critical for OEMs to make vehicles more affordable as well as to the success of the wider supply chain. To take advantage of market opportunities European production will need to remain competitive against strong global pressures, particularly from China. Taking full advantage of automated inspection to ensure both robust product quality and automation efficiency will be essential.
SICK
www.sick.co.uk
44 APRIL 2022 | FACTORY&HANDLINGSOLUTIONS
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