AUTOMATIC GENERATION OF ROBOT CONTROL SOFTWARE FOR LOW-VOLUME ASSEMBLY IN AN ENVIRONMENT WITH FLEXIBILITY

A manufacturing system to enhance the economic viability of an assembly cell that is dedicated to operation with products that are manufactured for relatively short periods of time in small batches is under development. Simulation of the assembly cell is employed to generate robot control programmes, and these are enhanced with additional locations for subsequent use in the cell in order that precise positional locations may be determined accurately in an automatic fashion by the assembly cell robot. In this manner the time duration required for on-line robot programme correction and calibration is minimized, assembly cell non-productive time is reduced and the economic operation of a flexible assembly cell may be considerably enhanced.