ROS-Based Control of an Industrial Micro-Assembly Robot

Abstract

Today’s manufacturing is progressively challenged by high product variant turnovers, low standardization, and small lot sizes. These characteristics can also be seen in the growing sector of manufacturing of optical systems, in which the micro-assembly of the components is currently the main cost driver. In the sector of industrial robotics, research has addressed these challenges by developing rapidly reconfigurable robotic cells. Typically, these solutions are based on high-level task programming and a hardware and software-agnostic virtualised machine control interface, which is often facilitated by the open-source Robot Operating System (ROS) platform. While research in the domain of micro-assembly has also introduced virtual programming to assembly systems, the focus has rather been on assisting experienced engineers with the implementation of processes than on enabling rapid assembly of prototypes by inexperienced personnel. To bridge this gap, we are working on a holistic framework for autonomous process implementation that is specifically focused on the unique boundary conditions of micro-assembly. As one of the initial steps, in this paper, we present a case study of the implementation of ROS2-based control of an industrial micro-assembly robot. Furthermore, we detail on the advantages, prospects, and limitations, our design choices encompass.