Towards Enhancing Modular Production Systems by Integrating a Collaborative Robotic Manipulator

Over the past decades, many companies and factories have started to use industrial robots in production facilities. Therefore, integrating manipulators with the manufacturing lines has become an essential paradigm. This paper is aimed at integrating Festo's Modular Production System (MPS) with Universal Robot's UR5 manipulator equipped by a 2-finger parallel gripper. The integrated system can perform a range of different tasks innate to Modular Production System, but also additional tasks ranging from selective and simple pick and place operations to more complicated ones with color recognition and object identification as part of UR5 capabilities. Devices mentioned above are created by different companies, therefore, each of them has an independent operating system and user interface. This project facilitates an understanding of engineering concepts, plus creating an open-source academical and industrial platform for educational purposes and technical challenges. The proposed approach is implemented successfully in a lab environment as a proof of concept in utilizing widely available and off the shelf lab equipment in a uniform and integrated system.