AMR guided by a Sick 3D sensor
mobility in their factories, but they don’t yet know how it will work in practice. Tey need to develop a reference application they can rely on and that will inform future deployments.’ One early implementation in the food
industry has been for the production of coffee capsules. At the assembly level boxes are generally packed with the same flavour, but manufacturers can generate extra value by creating mixed collections of capsules. ‘An AMR is an ideal solution for these so-called smart-kitting applications, since they can transport capsules from different product lines to the packaging station,’ said Adam.
Another application within the
automotive sector is the installation of the dashboard, which is an expensive part of inventory that also offers plenty of options for customisation. ‘Manufacturers can’t afford to have a huge inventory of dashboards, which means they must be produced on demand,’ said Adam. ‘Mobile robots are the right technology to facilitate that flexibility.’ But this is just the start. In the future AMRs could become just as ubiquitous
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in industrial environments as the fixed robotic machinery that has driven process innovation over the last 20 years. ‘Our customers in the automotive sector are already thinking one step ahead,’ noted Adam, who said that one key function for mobile robots will be transporting a car chassis to several different workstations where different options will be installed. ‘For electric vehicles in particular it’s very important to be able to move the car body from one location to another,’ he said. ‘Tey have different electrical connectors that in turn need different parts and pieces of equipment, and manufacturers want to use this extra mobility to install the connector, the engine and the battery, as well the optional extras.’ Once equipped with wheels and its
own navigation system, Adam imagines that the cars of the future will be able to travel through the manufacturing facility by themselves – visiting different locations to collect the right finishing touches such as the windows, the dashboard, and the interior carpets and seats. ‘Te car itself will become part of the process,’ he mused. ‘It will become a kind of robot.’ O
ADDING A NEW
DIMENSION PSDs for accurate measurement
Sick
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