The robots that make cars

[Princess Valiant]

Ok, since the other day when I posted a video on how a mini cooper is made from beginning to end, I have been thinking about something I noticed in the video.

In the video there are robotic arms assembling the cars. Well, I noticed that the robots all had the ABB logo. So I checked into this and I find it very interesting.

What I found is an impressive process behind robotics and I never even thought of all this before seeing that video.

Robotics are so complex yet so simple. The theory is so simple that it can make your head hurt.

I started digging around to see what makes those robots work and I found is a range of simple analog robotics which simply work with a series of pressure and temperature sensors that obviously convert a real world input into a resistance or voltage to signal a processor, be it analog or digital to create a reaction within pre-set parameters.

seems simple enough.....a microprocessor tells the driving motor when and where to stop based on a reference voltage or resistance derived from a sensor input.

The amazing part is there is a new series of robotics that now have the sense of vision. Through an algorithm light input the computer is not only able to see but understand what it is looking at. So an advanced algorithm input should be able to replace a photo sensor and possibly a series of position sensors if the robot can recognize itself in the algorithm pattern and actually know its position and where its range of motion is.

Has anyone else looked into these or maybe work with them.

 

[krazykuda]

The ABB is Allen Bradley. They make the machines.

I had a professor at my school who specialized in robotics. He was a genius. He was the only guy to go through Engineering at our school since 1877 to get a 4.0 GPA. Not only that, but he did a 5 year program in 3 1/2 years.

They use them at Jefferson North Assy Plant in Detroit. That's where they build the Grand Cherokee. They use them to install the front and rear windows and rear side windows. I always liked to watch it install the windows.

An arm would pick up the window and run it around for the sealer to be applied, then position it. It was cool to watch it find its side to side locator and then the up/down locator and then bring the window up over the lip and gently press it into place. (all in less than one minute).


I also saw them used in the body shop when I worked at the truck plant. They are used for the spot welders on the body assembly line. this is where they take all of the seperate sheet metal pieces and weld them together into a body. Those things could shoot sparks about 10 feet when they weld the bodies.

I was part of a team of engineers hired to improve the quality. We had 5 engineers in our group from "body in white" (BIW). That's the group that is responsible for the body sheet metal and assembly of it. Part of our job was to come in on weekends when the line wasn't running and work on the fixtures/machines that build the trucks and make any improvements/adjustments. One weekend, I remember the BIW engineers talking about how they were tuning in one of the spot welders for the Dodge Ram truck. They were testing different places for the spot welds. They had a Ram in station and kept welding on the same truck so many times, that it had almost 3 times as many spot welds as the regular production car. They couldn't use another truck as there were no operators to run the other stations to shuttle the line. So someone got a truck from the factory with 3 times as many welds as it needed. The BIW guys liked to see the sparks flying from the spot welders when they walked through the body assembly area of the plant. Argh, argh, argh..... (Tim Allen grunt....)

 

[Hyper-Performance]

I work with similar units daily. It is amazing the accuracy these can obtain!

Integrating vision is something that has been in the industry for a decade, but advances in the vision industry have helped the robotics greatly.