n TECHNOLOGY June 2023 www.drivesncontrols.com 18 THE GERMAN SCREWDRIVING technology specialist Deprag has joined forces with the Berlin robotics software developer Micropsi Industries to develop what they claim is the first automated screwdriving system that can handle changes in the environment. They say that such automation has not been possible, or economically feasible, using earlier technologies. The companies add that their technology can also handle dynamic tasks on moving belts for the first time. It can be used to assemble a wide variety of products and components, and can be set up and deployed in less than a day. Screw assembly – creating secure connections between two or more parts, using one or more screws – sounds simple, but is extremely complex in practice due to variances in position, angles and manufacturing tolerances. Using conventional automation to achieve this is complicated and expensive. According to Micropsi and Deprag, it is almost impossible for traditional automation systems, which need uniform conditions, to overcome the complexity that results from unpredictable screw-hole locations, or unaligned holes. As a result, many screwdriving assembly tasks have to be done by hand. The same applies to nuts, studs and flow-form screws. The new approach combines Deprag’s screwdriving technology with Micropsi’s Mirai robot control system. Mirai-controlled robots can handle complex tasks which were previously impossible, extremely complicated or unprofitable to automate. Mirai attaches to a robot. Once fitted, it allows the robot to perceive its environment and correct its movements in real time as it performs a task. It can be trained or retrained easily and quickly by people with no background in engineering or AI. To demonstrate their new approach, Micropsi and Deprag performed tests on an application involving driving four screws into an electronic module to join a top piece with a base. The Mirai and Deprag technologies were attached to a Universal Robots UR16e cobot. The task was broken down into four parts: n First, the robot positions a screw about 50-60mm from a screw-hole. At this point, the robot controller hands over to the Mirai system. n Mirai assumes control of the robot, positioning the screw tip just above the threaded hole. n The screwdriving system then takes command, inserting and securing the screw to a specific torque or angle. At the same time, the screwdriver is fed another screw. n Guided by its own controller, the robot pulls back and approaches the next hole. This set-up was able to handle variations in the position of the electronic module in the workstation, as well as in the angle at which it inserts the screws into the holes. www.micropsi-industries.com www.deprag.com/en/index REECO AUTOMATION, the Welsh specialist in cobot-based palletising systems, has announced a palletiser based on a new 20kg-capacity cobot (collaborative robot) which, it says will level the playing field between palletising systems based on traditional industrial robots and those using cobots. It believes that this will, in turn, make end-of-line robotic automation attractive to manufacturers of all sizes, especially smaller ones for whom standard robots have often been too complex, bulky, and costly to buy and maintain. Traditional robots have the attractions of being able to operate to high speeds and to carry large loads with precision, making them ideal for palletising large volumes of products. They are also usually reliable and can operate around-the-clock if necessary. But they are expensive and require a lot of floorspace as well as protective fencing. Until recently cobots have been limited for palletising applications by their loadcarrying capacities. But with the recent arrival of Omron’s 20kg payload capacity RB2000 cobot, Reeco believes that cobotbased palletising could become more attractive, especially for users with limited floorspace. The cobots are smaller, lighter, cheaper and easier to deploy than standard robots, as well as being easy to program. They can work safely alongside humans, and do not need fences. Reeco says its 20kg cobot palletiser can perform a variety of tasks and work with different products, pallets and packaging, making them more flexible than human operators in many applications. www.reeco.co.uk 20kg-capacity palletising cobot ‘levels the playing field’ AI-guided system automates ‘impossible’ screwdriving tasks The Deprag-Micropsi automated screwdriving system can cope with variations in its environment
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