Multifunctional Technology of Flexible Manufacturing on a Mechatronics Line with IRM and CAS, Ready for Industry 4.0

TLDR: The presented technology, although it works on a laboratory structure, has applications in the real world and meets the specific requirements of Industry 4.0.

Abstract: A communication and control architecture of a multifunctional technology for flexible manufacturing on an assembly, disassembly, and repair mechatronics line (A/D/RML), assisted by a complex autonomous system (CAS), is presented in the paper. A/D/RML consists of a six-work station (WS) mechatronics line (ML) connected to a flexible cell (FC) equipped with a six-degree of freedom (DOF) industrial robotic manipulator (IRM). The CAS has in its structure two driving wheels and one free wheel (2 DW/1 FW)-wheeled mobile robot (WMR) equipped with a 7-DOF robotic manipulator (RM). On the end effector of the RM, a mobile visual servoing system (eye-in-hand VSS) is mounted. The multifunctionality is provided by the three actions, assembly, disassembly, and repair, while the flexibility is due to the assembly of different products. After disassembly or repair, CAS picks up the disassembled components and transports them to the appropriate storage depots for reuse. Technology operates synchronously with signals from sensors and eye-in-hand VSS. Disassembling or repairing starts after assembling and the final assembled product fails the quality test. Due to the diversity of communication and control equipment such as PLCs, robots, sensors or actuators, the presented technology, although it works on a laboratory structure, has applications in the real world and meets the specific requirements of Industry 4.0.