What are the application scenarios for robotic arms? Their application characteristics are quite clear: they primarily replace humans in hazardous work environments or perform intensive, repetitive tasks. If the work environment meets these two characteristics, robotic arms can be applied.
Robotic arms are mostly used in manufacturing, and have heavy industrial attributes, such as metal processing, polishing, assembly, machine tool loading and unloading, palletizing/handling, rubber/plastics, sorting, etc.
Metalworking
Metalworking involves processing raw materials such as copper, iron, and aluminum into items, parts, and components. It can replace manual labor in many processes such as forging, rolling, drawing steel wire, impact extrusion, bending, and shearing.
Polishing
The robot drives a pneumatic grinder at the end of the machine, automatically changing sandpaper of different grits to perform rough grinding, fine grinding, and polishing on the workpiece. The robot automatically removes and changes sandpaper of different grits. There are two workstations, one for grinding and the other for loading and unloading workpieces. The grinding and polishing operations are always carried out in a water-based environment.
assembly
Robotic arm assembly here generally refers to automobile assembly. In automated production lines, automobile assembly is divided into a series of procedures. Engineers set up various procedures and work with workers to meet the installation requirements of parts such as doors, hoods, and tires.
Machine tool loading and unloading
Machine tool loading mainly addresses the difficulty of feeding materials in production, such as textile machine tools. The materials themselves are large and heavy, and manual operation would require multiple people to cooperate in handling them. Using robotic arms for loading and unloading, the program and actions are fixed, and only loading and unloading are required.
Palletizing/Handling
Due to large supply volumes and rapidly rising labor costs, manufacturing and fast-moving consumer goods industries are increasingly equipping their packing lines with automated palletizing equipment to improve production efficiency and reduce costs. System features: The system is safe and stable, ensuring palletizing speed, preventing damage to the packaging box's appearance, and guaranteeing precise and secure palletizing.
Rubber/Plastic
In tire casing production, there are many material unloading stations, where the work is tedious, repetitive, and somewhat dangerous. Therefore, it is desirable to design a computer system to replace manual labor for material unloading, thereby improving production efficiency. A single shift could be increased to two or three shifts by robots, ultimately reducing production costs in the long run.
Sorting
Guided by vision, the robot follows and picks up work on the conveyor belt, then sorts it into different trays. The key feature is that the vision system performs positioning compensation and follows and grasps work online.
The application of robotic arms in manufacturing has become a trend, thanks to the rapid development of robotics technology over the past few decades, the continuous integration of new technologies, the new positioning of automated manufacturing, and the constant expansion of application scenarios. Technology is the driving force, while scenarios provide the benefits and value; only by generating value can technology gradually advance and have a long-term impact.
