There are
many robots used in manufacturing plants, e.g. auto parts, paper clip, binders,
etc. Those robots were pre-programmed to create a product according to its
specification.
The issue
was robot could be out of sync or miss calibration over time of use. The
developers could estimate or predict the out of calibration cases and use
sensors to measure real time products in order to adjust the robot
automatically.
One of the
issue was the conveyor belt is limited in length. The robots made parts and
dropped it on the conveyor belt, which run at determined speed. Some parts had
more minor defects then others, thus time required to fix it longer. For
example, auto parts made by robots had something called “gates or flashes”,
which required operator to trim it manually with a knife or a cutter. If a part
had more gates or flashes, operators would need more time to trim those.
However the robot didn’t slow down, thus many parts would be lined up on the
conveyors belt. The robot may be halted in this case, and time to restart a robot
is long; the products right after starting robot is not good, i.e. wasted
materials. The robot should be equipped
with a sensor or camera to monitor parts on the conveyor belt. It should slow
down if there were many parts on it.
There
are many cases, developers could implement a system equipped with sensors,
camera, or laser beam to monitor a situation and re-calibrate the robot according
to live data and measurement. For example, if a part is longer than
specification, it could adjust the robot to make next part correctly in length.
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