Grant: Idea to Innovation

Current trends in manufacturing call for more agile automatic riveting systems capable of replacing manual riveting operations that are inefficient, prone to error, and that have health and ergonomic problems. Existing automatic riveting systems (machines and robots) are excessively heavy and bulky, resulting in poor tool accessibility and limited application for large, simple and relatively flat sheet metal parts. To overcome the barriers of the existing systems, we have developed a new percussive robotic riveting system that applies a robot of small-to-medium size to operate a percussive rivet gun. The invention is a complete percussive robotic riveting system that includes hardware integration and software advancement. Customers will be able to use the system to address their need for greater automation and access many tight and smaller spaces. The developed prototype (Alpha version) consists of two parts, hardware and software. The former includes three subsystems, namely, a 6-DOF ABB robot for holding/moving a percussive rivet gun; a 5-axis computer numerical control (CNC) gantry system for holding/moving a bucking bar; and a programmable logic control (PLC) rivet feeder for feeding rivets automatically. The latter is a robotic riveting planning and control computer program for the three controllers of the afore-mentioned subsystems. The objective of this I2I project is 1) to transition from Alpha prototype to Beta prototype, and 2) benchmark the prototype performance against other riveting operations including automated squeezing riveting and manual riveting on aluminum sheets and composite panels.