The practical problems involved in off-line programming a robot from a CAD system

摘要

As part of a joint project between UMIST and Leyland Vehicles Limited under the Teaching Company Scheme, the feasibility of using a robot to automate the asssembly of components for commercial vehicles was investigated. The company were very keen to integrate the C.A.D. and C.A.M. aspects of the project. The envisaged system has many similarities to the system developed elsewhere for the manufacture of electrical looms, described by Gibbons. However, because of the low-volumes and variety of looms the production time lost with conventional teach-and-repeat methods would be significant. The recent availability of an off-line robot programming package for the company's C.A.D. system meant that both of these aspects could be tackled. The use of off-line programming from a C.A.D. system is a relatively new concept with associated high technical risk, and so a development robot-assembly cell was set up to demonstrate that the technique was practicable. Many problems were encountered but were overcome, and the project has been very successful in confirming the viability of automating this assembly process.