P19611: Industrial Robot

Problem Definition

Table of Contents

1 Team Vision for Problem Definition Phase
- 1.1 Team Accomplishments for Project Definition Phase
2 Project Summary
3 Customer Interviews
4 Stakeholders
5 Use Cases
6 Project Goals and Key Deliverables
7 Customer Requirements (Needs)
8 Engineering Requirements (Metrics & Specifications)
9 Constraints
10 House of Quality
11 Risk Management
12 Design Review Materials
13 Plans for next phase

Team Vision for Problem Definition Phase

Team Accomplishments for Project Definition Phase

Understood customer vision and motivation for project from PRP
Drafted customer requirements from PRP
Converted customer requirements into engineering requirements
Identified key stakeholders and assessed impact potential
Developed use scenarios for utilizing equipment
Interviewed customer to clarify concerns and motivations
Developed list of team expectations in the form of norms and values
Listed potential risks and quantified importance along with likelihood of occurrence
Developed project and individual plans for the next three weeks
Researched OSHA safety requirements for industrial robots
Researched current robotic arms and quantified relevant characteristics to benchmark against

Project Summary

In a manufacturing environment there are many areas that could benefit from the automatic loading and unloading of finished goods from machines by robotic arms. One example is the unloading of milled parts from a CNC machine. Another example is the movement of parts from the outfeed of a large sanding machine back to the infeed area. It is important to note that at times these machines may sit unused for one or two weeks. Because of this, if each machine had a designated robotic arm for loading and or unloading they too would sit unused. A way to avoid a robotic system from sitting dormant while its assigned machine is not in use is to have one portable robotic arm that could be pre-programed to load and or unload from multiple machines. The user of this arm would simply need to place the arm next to a machine and start the program for that machine. Next to each machine there should be a marked area that will outline the docking position for the robot. Note, the body of the robot itself may need to be mechanically fastened to the ground for secure and exact placement.

For this senior design project, the main objective will be to develop and build a SCARA robotic arm controller and arm for the CNC unloading situation referenced above. This arm will be used to unload a CNC table after the cutting of parts is completed. When a CNC has finished cutting wooden pieces out of a 4’ by 8’ sheet of plywood the location of the pieces will be sent to the controller application on the PC which will direct that to the robot’s controller.

Unlike other controllers in the robotics industry, the background calculations behind the motion for a robot will be done on a desktop application rather than within the internal firmware of the controller. We will be investigating using Autodesk Fusion 360 as this PC application.

The focus of this project is to build a robotic arm and respective controller along with a PC application to achieve the unloading of a CNC table for multiple machines and programs.

The 1-page summary can be found here: 1-Page Project Summary