Cyclic scheduling in small-scale robotic cells served by a multi-function robot
- Authors: Foumani, Mehdi , Ibrahim, Yousef , Gunawan, Indra
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Conference proceedings
- Relation: IECON 2013 - 39th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, Nov. 2013, Vienna, Austria pp.4362-4367
- Full Text: false
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- Description: The industrial robot is one of the popular devices used in fully automatic production lines as material handling tool. A consequential problem is finding a cyclic robot movement which gives the maximum cell output in mass production environments. The Robotic Cell Scheduling Problem (RCSP) is predominantly separated into two different problems: Single-Function Robotic Cell (SFRC) and Multi-Function Robotic Cell (MFRC) scheduling problem. These problems are layout-oriented and operation-oriented, respectively. Literature concerning with former case considered a robotic system served by a transporting robot performing a single task. This kind of transporting robot is usually called Single-Function Robot (SFR). For the latter case, the robotic system served by a Multi-Function Robot (MFR) which simultaneously perform an arbitrary task in addition to parts transportation task. Giving a real-life example of MFRs, the use of a class of grippers performing in-process control is significantly increased in industry. The grippers, install at the end of MFR arm, can perform quality control tasks (e.g. accurately measure diameters) while part is carried to next machine. Figure 1 shows an example of these grippers used for measuring the diameter of crankshaft [1]. The measuring heads are integrated into the automation by adding gages and crankshaft locating features to MFR using in these lines. Also, there is a special kind of MFR, namely SDA10, which is suitable for assembly and part transfer in production lines especially if fixturing is costly [2]. Thus, it is crucial to undertake a comprehensive research onto effect of MFRs on production rate.
Quantifying the impact of using multi-function robots on productivity of rotationally arranged robotic cells
- Authors: Foumani, Mehdi , Ibrahim, Yousef , Gunawan, Indra
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Conference proceedings
- Relation: Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management (IEEM), 2013 IEEE International Conference , Bangkok, Thailand, 10-13 Dec. 2013 p 1194-1198
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Generally, an industrial robot is named the Single-Function Robot (SFR) if it is only able to perform one task like material handling. However, a Multi-Function Robot (MFR) predominantly performs two tasks concurrently: material handling and a special operation. This type of recent robot with this ability can raise production rate. A robot equipped by a special kind of gripper namely Grip-Gage-Go is a real-life applications of MFRs. This gripper makes MFR competent to measure the diameter of the part in transit. These MFRs are widely employed in the inspection of automotive products including crankshaft, gears, and engine valves [1]
Scheduling dual gripper robotic cells with a hub machine
- Authors: Foumani, Mehdi , Ibrahim, Yousef , Gunawan, Indra
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Conference proceedings
- Relation: Industrial Electronics (ISIE), 2013 IEEE International Symposium, Taipei, Taiwan, 28th-31st May 2013 p1-6
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper introduces a new methodology to optimise the cycle time of dual-gripper robotic workcells. The workcell under study is composed of a group of m production machines. In order to produce a completed part, a chain of m-1 secondary operations are performed by m-1 different machines, and a hub machine is alternately visited for m primary operations. Indeed, parts must reenter the hub machine after any one of secondary operations. Those types of robotics workcells are used for high capacity production such as in photolithography manufacturing, These cells are cluster tools for semiconductor manufacturing where a wafer visits a processing stage several times for the atomic layer deposition (ALD) processes. For electroplating lines, these cells are also common in practice where there is a multifunction production stage that is visited by parts over once. This optimisation methodology is limited to the dual-gripper robotic cells, where identical parts are produced and these parts completely follow a similar sequence. The lower bound of cycle time for such dual-gripper robotic cells is obtained by finding the cycle time of all related robot move cycles, and subsequently optimal robot task sequence, which is a two-unit cycle, is determined.