Self-supporting End Effectors: Towards Low Powered Robots for High Power Tasks

AbstractNew tasks for industrial robots often require high stiffness or entail high reaction forces, which are currently provided by the robot structure itself. This leads to heavy and expensive robot structures: designed for the main task, but oversized for positioning and movement tasks.We propose a new approach to resolve these contradicting requirements: supporting the end effector directly against the workpiece or its surroundings, thus diverting the reaction forces away from the robot structure. We demonstrate this approach in a joining application and present design methods for self-supporting robotic tools as well as potential industrial applications of this technique

A New Robotic Spray Technology for Generative Manufacturing of Complex Concrete Structures Without Formwork

The robot-assisted manufacturing is introduced for many years in automated production areas, while the production of buildings still follows the traditional manual process. Using new possibilities of digital planning the construction industry demonstrated potential for the implementation of freeform architectures, which are only possible using expensive and only once usable formwork structures. This paper focuses on sprayed concrete technology for automated production processes to build up freeform concrete components. A study case of the production of a concrete wall by an industrial robot, equipped with a concrete spraying tool is presented in order to investigate the possibilities and tolerancing issues of this technique

Partial Additive Manufacturing: Experiments and Prospects with Regard to Large Series Production

AbstractAdditive manufacturing meets the demand for highly customized and flexible production. However, the physical limitation of the material application rate causes that large volume production of such workpieces is not attractive yet. In order to push additive manufacturing towards large volume production, the impact of this limitation has to be minimized while the advantages have to be maintained. For this purpose, it is proposed in this article to combine partial additive manufacturing with other production technologies. In such a production concept, standardized base workpieces are made in large volume production first and then finalized by additive manufacturing. The finalization step adds the variant specific key features to the workpiece. This proposal is detailed by discussing the suitability of specific workpieces and outlines of the processing route. An experimental feasibility study of this principle is reported, where Fused Deposition Modeling is used to add geometric features to a base workpiece. This case study includes the development of a robot-based setup for the deposition of material with 6 degrees of freedom. This case study is used to illustrate and discuss the fundamental aspects of the conjunction of additive manufacturing with other production processes