Fully automatic bolting and assembly of complete wheels in cycle and flow operation
The level of automation in the automotive industry is undoubtedly very high. The automotive industry has been increasingly focussing on automation for years in order to increase efficiency, improve product quality and make production more cost-efficient. However, the seemingly simple assembly of wheels to the car body requires maximum precision and process reliability.
IBG's contribution to the advancing automation of the automotive industry is the world's first robot-supported assembly and inspection system for automated wheel assembly in continuous flow operation. In the robot cell we have developed, two industrial robots are equipped with independent camera systems on their grippers.
The first step involves recognising the wheels - wheel type, position, rotational orientation and pick-up height - using a 2D camera system and software specially developed by IBG for this application. In the next step, a 3D camera system records the spatial position and rotational orientation of the wheel hub in order to finalise the synchronous bolting of the wheels to the vehicle movement using the correction values of the vision system. The automatic recording of torque and angle of rotation during each bolting process ensures a 100% inspection, which enables the traceability of each individual assembly process.
With our robot-supported assembly and inspection system, we have succeeded in improving workplace ergonomics and increasing the quality of the customer's assembly process.
