Technologies and processes for the flexible robotic assembly of electric motor stators

The customer specific manufacturing of stators for electric motors is based on a time-consuming and expensive process chain. For this reason, the E|Drive-Center at the Institute for Factory Automation and Production Systems (FAPS) from Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) is researching on solutions centered on the flexible automation of these processes. In this paper a robotic-based process chain for mounting stator of electric motors is proposed. The basis of the existing assembly cell is a two-armed robotic kinematic that should complete several formerly manual tasks. The focus is set on the sub-processes of coil winding, coil inserting and the handling of limp, non-rigid elements. The main goal is to improve flexibility in assembling different variants, small batch sizes and customer specifications. For this reason, it is necessary to conceptualize, design and realize specific tools, which can be picked up by the robot. Instead of a single cumbersome tool the functions are split into some handy tools. Due to the amount of various functions needed for the process, a quick-change system is introduced.