Robotics Research

Applications: Manufacturing

The manufacturing sector has traditionally been quick to embrace robotic technology. Indeed without the automation of factories many industries would be unable to exist as they do today; the automotive industry has particularly embraced robotic manufacturing. Manufacturing robots perform a wide variety of tasks throughout the manufacturing process, and are particularly suited to applications on production lines because of the highly repetitive nature of the work and the need for accuracy, consistency and reliability of operation. The constrained and often static nature of the environment found on a production line makes the application of robotic technology simpler as it reduces the need for the robot to be able to react dynamically. Manufacturing robots are commonly employed to perform such tasks as machining, grinding, welding, cleaning, painting and similar production work, as well as secondary operations like quality control, packaging, sorting etc.

Manufacturing robotics requires the application of sophisticated control and coordination techniques, and detailed world models. Precision sensing (perception) is also required, and recent research has seen the application of learning and adaptation techniques to manufacturing processes.

Manufacturing Robotics Research in Australia

• Associate Professor James Trevelyan at the University of Western Australia (UWA) has been involved in the development of a robot calibration system capable of calibrating serial link robots (common in manufacturing) with a high degree of accuracy using commonly available equipment. The technique can be applied to any kind of serial link manipulator, and represents a robust calibration method which can be applied to the robot in-situ.
• Also at UWA, Dr Karol Miller is currently developing an extremely fast parallel robot, capable of accelerations up to 600m/s/s. The robot, dubbed NUWAR, will be capable of up to four pick-and-place operations per second, and like its predecessor delta-4 is likely to have numerous applications in manufacturing.
• Jayantha Katupitiya from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) is conducting research into active force control of metal spinning machines, as well as nano-grinding machines for forming lenses on the ends of optical fibres.

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  A nano-ground lens on the tip of a optical fibre, formed by an automated grinding machine developed at the University of New South Wales.