Automated Stacking and Screwing of Low Volume Electromechanical Products with Industrial Robot

Automated assembly of electromechanical products with high volume, low variety and few parts is carried out every day in production facilities. In case of increasing part amount and/or complicated assembly processes, automation is failing despite the use of flexible, industrial robot-based solutions. To overcome this, in this paper the authors propose a novel tool to automate stacking and screwing operations. The tool is based on a Design for Automate Assembly (DFAA) toolbox and uses CAD assemblies as input for the robot programming of the assembly operation, and is combined with simulation tools for industrial robots. Assembly is carried out by an industrial robot, with minimal human assistance on a use-case on a simple electromechanical product (video decoder) which is presented, and improvements are discussed.