Robotic Drilling Helps Beat the Competition

Man­u­al drilling can be dan­ger­ous and exhaust­ing work. Robot­ic drilling pro­vides a cost-effec­tive and safe alter­na­tive to using human work­ers for drilling. As drilling becomes auto­mat­ed, cost and waste are cut while cycle times are increased.

End-of-arm tool­ing is cus­tomiz­able to meet the consumer’s needs, whether in the aero­space indus­try, auto­mo­tive indus­try, or any oth­er. Robot­ic drilling is depen­dent on posi­tion­al repeata­bil­i­ty. The robot is respon­si­ble for deliv­er­ing the right tool in the right ori­en­ta­tion, and must remain rigid even when force is applied.

Robot­ic drilling is used in a wide vari­ety of indus­tries. Robots can adapt to the demands of the par­tic­u­lar indus­try in which they are being used. For exam­ple, the largest use of robot­ics in the aero­space indus­try is to drill holes into com­po­nents. Vision sys­tems allow the robots to accu­rate­ly locate where drilling needs to occur on an air­frame. A fuse­lage needs thou­sands of holes drilled, and robot­ic drilling is essen­tial for this process.

Fanuc robots are ide­al for drilling and oth­er appli­ca­tions that require a high amount of accu­ra­cy. The Fanuc M‑900iB/700 super heavy pay­load robot is ide­al for aero­space drilling and debur­ring. It is equipped with sec­ondary encoders and deflec­tion com­pen­sa­tion soft­ware to main­tain high pre­ci­sion and rigid­i­ty. After drilling an air­frame fuse­lage, it can then change to a debur­ring tool to debur the panel’s windows.

The Fanuc M‑900iB/260L 6‑axis robot is anoth­er drilling robot with a 260kg pay­load capac­i­ty and a 3100mm reach. Its arm has a drilling head that rotates at 1800 RPM, and is equipped with a 3.6kW motor. 

KUKA robots are also used in the aero­space indus­try for assem­bly of com­plex air­craft struc­tures, but are also used in oth­er indus­tries as well. The KUKA KR150 robot pro­vides accu­rate robot­ic drilling in a vari­ety of sand cores used to make cast­ings for cus­tomers in the auto­mo­tive and con­struc­tion machine industries. 

Motoman​’s UP50 indus­tri­al robot has an arm with a 50kg pay­load capac­i­ty. The UP50 drilling sys­tem moves parts from table to table and drills holes in tubes. Pneu­mat­ic tool­ing inserts end caps into the tubes to com­plete the cycle. A UP20 mod­el with vision can locate and ori­ent a part before load­ing it into a drilling machine.

Robot­ic drilling is also future ori­ent­ed. Robot­ic Drilling Sys­tems AS is attempt­ing to devel­op a ful­ly auto­mat­ed drilling rig. The rig would ​“think” for itself, doing its own posi­tion­ing, erect­ing steel rein­force­ments, and drilling a well with­out human interference.

Using robots for drilling speeds the process while ensur­ing qual­i­ty and pre­ci­sion. Robots​.com car­ries a vari­ety of drilling robots from dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers. If you are unsure on which brand you would like, we can help you choose the per­fect one to ful­fill your needs. Con­tact us today by call­ing 877−762−6881 or reach rep­re­sen­ta­tives online.