At a recent Universal Robots training session, a customer threw us a curveball at the end of our presentation.
They had brought a few cardboard pieces that make up their connector reel assembly. The ‘challenge’ was to see if the Universal Robots UR5 AE3 could pick and place a large diameter circular pieces from a stack, then an inner tube, and finally a second large circular piece. These would be placed in that order into a stapling machine that would complete the fastening process.
Now this was a bit of an unfair challenge since we would ideally design an end effector for this type application which would include a few vacuum heads. However, the flexibility of the Robotiq 85 electric gripper and the ease of programming in the Universal Robots UR5 AE3 allowed us to have this proof of concept up and running in under 5 minutes.
In this demo, we were able to hit the customers cycle time of 27 seconds. However, the UR5 is only running at 25% of maximum speed. Their long-term goal is to assemble a reel every 17 seconds, which will be easily done by programming the move at a faster speed and using vacuum grippers.
If you have any questions about this particular proof of concept, collaborative robotics (cobots), flexible automation, or anything else, please email me.
