Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

The main challenge for this project is to improve the accuracy and reliability of the pin placement into the cutting tool as well as increase the throughput for Atlas Copco. The improvement in the pin placement process will allow Atlas Copco to eliminate the need for operators to have to place the pins in the cutting tool thus increasing overall capacity and allow these operators to focus on other processes. The robot will first be charged with picking the pin from a cartridge located within the robot workspace. The robot will then be given the specific model number of the part which will indicate the exact coordinates of each cutting tool. There can be multiple cutting tools located within the robot workspace which will further increase the throughput and reduce the changeover time. One alternative to working on multiple cutting tools which will be investigated during this project is to have them indexed into the robot workspace using a conveyor. Sault College has an available ABB IRB1200 model robot in our robotics lab which will be used for this project. In addition to the programming environment, this robot also has a simulation platform that can be used to simulate the application to visually indicate the process. Our proposed solution is to develop and test the innovation at Sault College starting on April 1, 2017. The plan is to utilize 1 or 2 Sault College students who will research the necessary code that will need to be created. After this research phase, the hardware can be installed onto the robot and tested to ensure it will adequately work for the pin placement. The rest of the hardware will consist of a programmable logic controller (PLC) and a human-machine interface (HMI) screen. The hardware for the robot will consist mainly of a specialty gripper created by Atlas Copco so it can pick and place the pins into the cutting tool. The students will gain valuable knowledge of how to implement a working automated system and also be exposed to new technologies such as robots, grippers, sensors, fieldbus configurations and various software packages. Faculty at Sault College along with staff will guide the students as well as utilize their skills for the project.