CONTROL & AUTOMATION
BREAKING BOUNDARIES
MITSUBISH ELECTRICS
ROBOT ARMS
ARE GETTING
EVERYWHERE…
Recent developments are opening
new opportunities and catapulting the
industrial robot arm into a journey around
the production environment.
Robots undoubtably take the drudgery
out of many repetitive manufacturing,
packaging and processing tasks. Engineers
are generally fascinated by the idea of
improving production processes and keen
to integrate robots, so the decision as to
whether one is used or not boils down to
economics; operators want to see a good
case made for the return on investment
before giving the green light.
Applications using proprietary robotics
solutions such as the MELFA RV articulated
arm and RH series SCARA robots from
Mitsubishi Electric are now commonplace
in many production facilities, usually
in pick-and-place or light assembly
applications. Breaking established
boundaries on the cost and availability of
a mainstream robot solution however is
moving the goalposts on that final cost
versus return decision.
Cost reduction is being achieved by
enabling robot control via a stock PLC
while the ability to not only program
a robot easily to perform a variety of
different tasks, but also to send it around
the production floor work at different
stations to perform them is delivering a
new level of flexibility and availability.
PLC POWER
Offering full robot control from a PLC
means that whenever a PLC is being
used it can be seconded to include robot
control in the list of tasks it is already
performing. Not having to purchase or
house an additional robot controller
module in the panel or on the machine
not only reduces the initial purchase
cost, it also reduces the panel space
required, simplifies wiring and can reduce
development time for a new machine.
A perfect example of this in action
is the revolutionary new Shawpak
thermoforming packaging machine built
by Riverside Medical Packaging. By using
a servo-controlled drum instead of a
conveyor system and integrating a robot
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PECM Issue 35
arm for product insertion on a machine
that already had a PLC onboard, the
Shawpak machines are able to replace a
cleanroom packing line of anything up to
20m in length with a unit that occupies as
little as 2m2.
Combining that cost-effective PLC
controlled robot solution with an
autonomous vehicle that can be used
to deploy the robot on any number
of individual work stations allows the
economics to be recalculated all over again.
Which is exactly what the development
team at AGV specialist Mirage has done.
ON THE MOVE
In many industries flexible production
demands mean short runs of customised
products are becoming more
commonplace. A robot that can be used
for component assembly tasks and then
moved down the production line to help
pack the products in individual containers
or palletise a batch for delivery offers much
more of a value-added contribution from a
single robot.