MEGAROB

"DEVELOPMENT OF FLEXIBLE, SUSTAINABLE AND AUTOMATED PLATFORM FOR HIGH ACCURACY MANUFACTURING OPERATIONS IN MEDIUM AND LARGE COMPLEX COMPONENTS USING SPHERICAL ROBOT AND LASER TRACKER ON OVERHEAD CRANE"

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The main objective is to design a flexible and sustainable platform that automates high precision manufacturing operations in mid- and large sized parts or structures (typically from 10 meters long and above) and to develop a full scale demonstrator. The proposed system will consist in a conventional spherical robot mounted on a simple structure such as an overhead travelling crane, controlled by a friendly high-level control system with the suitable ICT support. This structure will be able to cover a very large working area, releasing the 100% of shop-floor, and will allow the robot or set of robots to have a huge workspace. It is planned for the working area to be split into discrete areas, by dividing it into sectors shaped as three-dimensional cubes. Using the latest technology in laser tracker a system will be developed to continuously monitor the position of the robot, and to adapt its behaviour to the on-going measurement, thus achieving the excellent accuracy expected (ie. a tolerance of ±0.4mm in a 100 meters long part). As result the new development will allow very precise manufacturing processes of mid- and large sized complex parts and structures, with tolerances very similar to the high-accuracy achieved for smaller parts standards, not yet reached for large parts in the current state of the art. Furthermore, European factories, including SMEs, will be able to have a very flexible multi-process manufacturing machine, with a very low investment, compared to big machines the accuracy of which is based on their mechanical design.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Manufacturing makes up an important part of the EU economy. EU-funded scientists are developing a flexible platform to significantly aid in producing large parts with high precision.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

With EU funding of the project http://www.megarob.eu/ (MEGAROB), researchers are seeking to overcome major challenges associated with manufacturing and repairing parts that exceed 10 m in length. The major issue is the lack of positioning accuracy as the size of the machine increases. Therefore, there is an important gap between the precision currently achieved on small parts and that on large structures.

MEGAROB is working to develop an automated system that produces close tolerance parts. The demonstrator will be based on robotics and will perform high-precision manufacturing on large pieces that can be found in different industrial sectors. These include wind energy and civil engineering and would be extensive to aeronautics, railway and shipping.

The proposed high-accuracy robotic system will be mounted on an overhead travelling crane, monitored using a laser tracker system and controlled by a high-level control system along with the necessary software. This structure will cover a very large work area and allow the robot(s) to have a huge workspace. As such, the work area will be split into discrete 3D cubes.

MEGAROB incorporates different manufacturing processes such as milling, drilling, deburring, grinding, polishing, riveting, screwing, welding, coating and painting; in the future could be adapted for additive or hybrid manufacturing. The system multifunctionality eliminates the need to invest in unitary machines that usually perform the production sequence step by step. In the same way, specific tools used to mount the part in the traditional unitary production machine system will be suppressed.

So far, project work includes characterisation of the cutting forces for milling and polishing in different materials that are performed by an industrial robot. Static and dynamic studies of different crane positions and robot poses ensure that structure behaviour will be normal during operation. A first prototype has been produced to test some software functionalities.

The accuracy of big machines is based on their mechanical design. The flexible multi-process manufacturing machine under development is expected to reduce the investment of European factories in production machines as well as manufacturing and repairing times.