Elee Automation

Robot automation systems are rapidly taking the place of the human work force. One of the benefits is that this change provides the human work force with the time to spend on more creative tasks. The highest population of robots is in spot welding, spray painting, material handling, and arc welding. Spot welding and spray painting applications are mostly in the automotive industry. However, arc welding and material handling have applications in a broad range of industries, such as, automotive sub-suppliers, furniture manufacturers, and agricultural machine manufacturers. The number of arc welding automation robot stations is growing very rapidly. The two most common stations are the GMAW (Gas Metal Arc Welding) station and the GTAW (Gas Tungsten Arc Welding) station. These two stations are the most common because they are so well suited to robot systems. Typically, a robot arc welding station is comprised of a robot, a robot controller, arc welding equipment, a work clamp and motion devices to hold work pieces accurately in position (considering heat deformation), robot motion devices to move around the robot for a larger working range and better weld positions, sensors, and safety devices.

From modular designs to unique, custom-tailored solutions, Yaskawa Motoman offers innovative machine tending systems that will increase productivity and quality. Yaskawa Motoman’s extensive product line of more than 175 robot models includes a wide range of general-purpose manipulators, as well as application-specific models (used for foundry, die casting, press tending and injection molding). 

Industrial robots can be used to automate the tasks involved with putting together or disassembling a product, such as industrial or automotive components and machinery, furniture, or electronics components. Robots can either manipulate an assembly tool (e.g. nutrunner), or move the workpiece to/from a stationary assembly station. In this case, specialized gripper tooling is attached to the end of the arm, to manipulate parts and assemblies in several stages.Assembly (and Disassembly) is a coordinated sequence and combination of many individual operations, like part identification, part sortation, part separation, part feeding, part handling, part positioning, gripping, inserting, fastening/joining, quality inspection and auxiliary up- and downstream operations like cleaning, deburring, unpacking, sealing, engraving, labelling .... and hundreds more! The robot controller is in the middle of a communication flow, receiving data (part ID, job ID) or sending data to control tools, submitting status data to Line PLCs, MES systems or the cloud. This makes robotic assembly jobs challenging - and really interesting!