Handling of Frequent Design Changes in an Automated Assembly Cell for Electronic Products

This paper presents a prototype flexible assembly cell used for the assembly of electronic products. The cell is the first prototype version of the coming assembly system for fire sensors at Autronica. It is developed specifically for testing different concepts to reduce development time for design changes and introduction of new variants. The cell consists of a robot, grippers, sensors, vision systems and fixturing systems which have been selected for in-line adaptivity and reconfiguration. The topics of developing generic vision programs and reducing programming time for vision and robot have been central. The aspects needed to be addressed during development are presented together with considered and chosen solutions. These solutions are also discussed and compared to other systems presented in recent publications on flexible assembly.