Glass enterprises are the part of the automotive industry with the fastest increase in automation. By applying the robot arm, a large number of operators are reduced, and the labor efficiency is improved and the labor intensity of operators is reduced by enhancing the degree of automation while reducing labor costs.
At this stage, most of the auto glass enterprises in China have completed the installation and use of robotic arms, achieved obvious results, and succeeded in the fierce market competition, and some of them have aimed the development direction at the international market, and obtained a large number of international orders by improving the degree of automation as well as product quality.
1 Types of robot arm for auto glass enterprises
The production process to reduce consumption, improve labor efficiency, and ensure product quality, so automotive glass companies have been widely used robot arm.
The use of robotic arm can make better use of the balance principle, under the premise of ensuring the safety of glass, more quickly and efficiently in a small space to complete the movement of glass positioning, the process only requires a simple click of the operator.
At this stage of the use of mechanical arms in accordance with the form of structure, we can divide it into two categories, respectively, hard-arm robot arm and soft-rope robot arm two, the enterprise should be selected according to the actual situation in the production process. Below we analyze and describe the two types of robotic arms respectively.
1.1 Hard arm type robot arm
The hard arm robot arm consists of four parts, which are the fixture part, the robot host, the air control system and the ground walking mechanism.
The rigid arm can be used when the height of the plant is limited, the center of gravity of the workpiece is far from the suspension point, and the workpiece needs to be tilted or reversed.
At the same time, the rigid arm is equipped with an air reservoir to ensure that it can continue to be used for one cycle in the event of an air cut, and an alarm to activate the self-locking function when the pressure drops to a certain level to ensure the safety of the part.
Since the rigid arm is equipped with a safety system, the operator is unable to release the workpiece during transport and without proper means. Through the use of non-standard fixtures, the range of application of the rigid-arm robot arm is greatly expanded and almost any shape of workpiece can be lifted, so the range of application of this robot arm is extremely wide.
1.2 Soft-lock type robotic arm
The function of the soft-lock robot arm is basically the same as that of the rigid-arm robot arm, and it continues to be used for one cycle in a broken state by being equipped with an air storage tank, and is able to raise an alarm to the operator.
The soft-lock robot arm is capable of expanding the production range by using various non-standard fixtures, and this production method is simple, practical and inexpensive.
2 Robotic arm features
Robotic arms are highly versatile, programmable, small in size, light in weight, anthropomorphic, and mechatronic. In addition to some specially designed non-standard robotic arms, the majority of robotic arms are able to perform different operational tasks.
For example, by changing the end of the operating tool to perform different tasks, and the robot arm is similar to the human body in structure, controlled by the computer can carry out a variety of actions to complete different tasks.
Since the robotic arm is capable of reprogramming, we can complete small batch and multi-species manufacturing.
In addition, because the robotic arm involves a variety of specialized technologies, it is a comprehensive application of microelectronics, computer technology, network technology, and mechanical technology.
The most significant feature of the robotic arm is its ability to reduce the labor intensity of operators and improve production efficiency while ensuring product quality.
The power of robotic arm is electric energy, and the equipment itself can realize fast, agile, non-stop and precise movement of robotic arm by entering the program in advance and carrying out effective maintenance during the process, so it can improve the production efficiency while ensuring the quality of products.
Finally, the application of the robot arm, to avoid the chances of enterprise operators working in a dangerous environment, effectively improve the level of safety production, and provide strong support for the long-term development of enterprises.
3 Robotic arm in the practical application
Automotive glass are safety glass, mainly tempered glass as well as laminated glass, laminated glass is used in the front windshield to avoid the safety threat to the driver due to broken glass, while most of the side and rear windshields of cars are tempered glass to ensure that when damaged by external forces, it can break into small blunt particles to avoid secondary injuries to the members of the car.
Although both types of glass in the use of the process can effectively ensure the safety of the driver and other members of the car’s human participants, but the production process, because the semi-finished glass is not heat-treated, still produce safety hazards for operators, so the vast majority of auto glass companies to alleviate this situation by increasing the application of robotic arms.
One of the most dangerous processes in auto glass processing is to move the original glass onto the workbench, and because the size of the original glass is too large, it is very easy to cause damage during transportation, leading to an increased likelihood of glass breakage. At present, the six-axis robot arm used in auto glass enterprises can effectively solve the above problems.
The front part of the robot arm is equipped with corrugated vacuum suction cups, thimbles, optical control and ultrasonic sensors to coordinate the robot position and automatically adsorb the glass to ensure that it can be transported smoothly from the shelf to the conveyor table.
The vast majority of six-axis robotic arms have at least three control systems installed in the front section to keep the glass surface parallel to the overall surface of the suction cup. Six-axis robotic arm can be multi-directional invisible adjustment to make it reach a satisfactory plane and angle, by summarizing, this robotic arm has the advantages of high precision, flexibility and good adaptability.
However, the high price, maintenance difficulties and the need to fix the base position also limit the application of the technology to a certain extent.
At this stage, many auto glass enterprises have organic association with universities, design institutes, etc., to design robotic arms according to the actual production situation of enterprises.
For example, an auto glass enterprise in Beijing and a university in Beijing, designed a set of affordable, but also to meet the production needs of the robot arm, due to the small space in the production workshop, the arm is designed to hang, this arm in the actual application process shows the advantages of high efficiency, simple operation, simple structure and easy maintenance, the application of the initial processing stage is very obvious, but due to the adsorption of glass on the pendulum.
However, it cannot be used in complex processes because of the high requirements for placement accuracy when adsorbing glass.
Finally, we commonly use two kinds of auto glass, tin surface and non-tin surface, through the six-axis robotic arm we are able to flip the glass opposite to the tin surface, which ensures the order of glass placement by means of detection during the handling process, and also speeds up the production process to avoid the occurrence of installation errors.
Robotic arm as one of the most frequently used equipment in automotive glass enterprises, largely determines the future development of the enterprise, so at this stage a large amount of money as well as manpower biased toward the research and improvement of the robotic arm. Relevant information shows that the future of the robot arm will inevitably develop in the direction of high precision, accurate positioning, modularity, mechatronics, multi-arm robots and networked robots.
While completing the existing work, the future robotic arm can achieve higher precision production and transportation through the application of a large number of advanced technologies, and control the random error within the minimum range; moreover, the robotic arm is also able to complete different production tasks by combining different modules, which has high flexibility; the realization of mechatronics can also reduce the footprint of the equipment, reduce the difficulty of maintenance and inspection, and improve Reliability; in view of the complex production conditions in the future, as well as the higher production efficiency requirements, multi-arm manipulator will certainly come into being; at the same time the development of network technology, will also make the production of manipulators more flexible and versatile.
4 Conclusion
Along with the rapid development of China’s automotive industry, auto glass enterprises have also ushered in the opportunity for development, so the majority of auto glass enterprises at this stage are promoting the growth of enterprise core competitiveness by increasing the application of robotic arms, improving production efficiency, and ensuring production quality.
The author hopes that through the discussion of this paper on the robot arm, causing everyone to attach importance to the continuous improvement of the robot arm, once again to enhance the production automation level of auto glass enterprises, and indirectly promote the development of China’s automotive industry.