UPF, a manufacturer of automotive frames, needed a solution to shortening production time and handling various part sizes. The automated system designed solved these problems by combining FANUC ARC Mate 120iB and dual-arm R-2000iA/200T Toploader robots along with other devices. Production was improved due to the versatility of the laser cutting robot.
UPF, along with two of its integrators, Citation Tool and Custom Machines, designed and built a robotic automation system that incorporated two state-of-the-art robotic laser-cutting cells and two heavy-payload material handling articulated gantries.
The laser-cutting robots use a patented, shape generation software package.
The articulated gantries use a patent-pending approach where a single robot controller drives two independent robot arms to function as a giant re-configurable gripper.
ArcMate 120iB Laser Cutting After leaving the press, the servo-puller delivers the rail to a FANUC ARC Mate 120iB laser-cutting robot.
FANUC Robotics’ ShapeGen software is used to program the ARC Mate 120iB to cut pre-determined holes or shapes through the vertical sides of the rail using a CO2 laser.
The servo-puller accurately positions the rail in the X axis in the laser cell, and the robot positions the laser head in the Z and Y axes for hole location accuracy.
To prevent this roadblock, a FANUC dual-arm Toploader (articulated gantry) robot, consisting of two R-2000iA/200T robot arms mounted to the same overhead linear track, will remove the rail from the conveyor and automatically place it onto a storage rack.
When the frame and stiffener rails arrive in the material-handling area, the FANUC Toploader robots match and combine the left- and right-hand rails and stiffeners.
Under control of a PLC, the servo-puller positions the rail within the work envelope of the FANUC ARC Mate 120iB laser-cutting robot
The robot controller, running FANUC Robotics’ patented ShapeGen software, makes a two-step laser cut on the rail.
If the frame rail has to be buffered to one of the eight adjacent storage areas or combined with a stiffener, then a FANUC Robotics R-2000iA/200T dual-arm Toploader robot is pressed into action.
By attaching a conventional five-axis articulated robot to a one-axis overhead rail, FANUC was able to combine the benefits of a standard articulated robot (including dexterity, high reliability and a spherical work envelope) with those of an overhead linear or area gantry (extended linear reach and overhead mounting).
FANUC Robotics provided a dual-arm R-2000iA/200T Toploader robot, powered by a single robot controller.
The UPF solution uses FANUC Robotics’ patent-pending approach, where a single controller precisely coordinates the motion of both robots, in essence turning them into one 12-axis servo-gripper.
When a long rail enters the work envelope of the dual-arm R-2000iA/200T, one or both robots change position along the linear rail to ensure each robot arm shares the load equally.
Provides opportunity to process new rail designs through simple re-programming of multiple servo-controlled devices including; CNC punch press, servo-puller and FANUC ARC Mate 120iB and dual-arm R-2000iA/200T Toploader robots.
Since we implemented the new FANUC robotic laser cutting system
