Industrial robot technology plays a vital role in modern production processes. The tools that this technology provides, excels at performing repetitive tasks and does so with precision, speed and strength far beyond human capability. This can both cut cost and ensure a higher quality standard. This thesis report presents a solution for automatic installation of rotor plates for a BLDC PM-motor. The motor design is under development at Uppsala University and is continually worked on during some of the University's courses within electricity. In addition to potential industry applications, findings in this study are of interest in the development of laborations for robotics courses at Uppsala University. The production process developed within this study was carried out with an ABB robot arm, which is a flexible machine commonly used for industrial applications. A specialized tool was manufactured and mounted on the robot, in order to properly grab and install the rotor plates. Different types of mechanisms were evaluated when designing this tool. It was decided that a mechanical gripping tool would be most suitable for the task as it would be able to lift multiple plates simultaneously, thus saving large amounts of time. To make this tool an already existing gripper was used and then specialized fingers were constructed and installed on the gripper. The gripper was then paired with a collaborative robot. A test rig was made to closely resemble the actual assembly situation. There, the tool proved to be able to lift the rotor plates without much of an issue. However due to the very narrow margin between the holes in the plates and the guiding rods they were supposed to be mounted onto, installing the plates proved to be very challenging. Many methods were tested in order to make the installation possible, but none were successful until the margin between the rods and the holes were increased. After this, the robot was able to grab, lift and install the plates in a smooth continuous motion. An overall concept for the assembly process was created, this involved the plates traveling on a conveyor belt, then picked up by a robot, installed onto the rotor which was mounted in a rotary table. Photoelectric sensors were utilized in order to determine the position of the plates on the conveyor. Later this assembly solution was simulated using ABB Robotstudio. It was estimated that, with this assembly solution, it would take roughly 170 seconds to install all the plates for one rotor. This result was seen as promising and it is plausible that further development of this concept could lead to an efficient assembly process.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-532605 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Wallin, Elias, Cerin, Axel |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för elektroteknik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | ELEKTRO-E ; 24002 |
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