A MOTOMAN robot from YASKAWA is suspended from a gantry system serving two work station each comprising a servo controlled twin axes positioner. The robot is equipped with TIG welding equipment with external wire fill to weld thin plate stainless steel assemblies. These are typically used in the pharmaceutical, chemical and food industry where there are stringent requirements for hygiene and therefore need to be welded smoothly without crevices that may trap contaminations.
Due to low batch volumes and high fixture costs, the assemblies are tack welded prior to robot welding. The requirements for fit up and accurate part geometry for robotic TIG welding are critical and typically needs to be within 0.3 mm. This system features a YASKAWA's MotoSense adaptive vision system. This allows the robot to detect the location of the joint as well as tracking of the seam for corner, butt, overlap and fillet joints. In addition the vision system can compensate for varying gap conditions and adjust welding parameters to ensure perfect results.
After extensive market research YASKAWA established that existing seam tracking solutions were not able to adequately detect and track joints where there is a zero gap condition. With the knowledge and experience on previous applications in this field, YASKAWA developed and implemented a custom seam tracking solution, MotoSense.
The measurement range, precision, speed and software functionality of MotoSense can easily be applied to other applications where adaptive behaviour is paramount such as laser welding, inspection, laser guidance or robot picking.
Benefits:
Flexible adaptive system.
Increased productivity.
Improved aesthetics.
Reduced re-work.
25 окт 2012
