PROGRAMMING OF RECONFIGURABLE ROBOTIC WORKING CELLS

As the business environment is getting harder on an increasingly global market, companies have to become more competitive than ever. More and more companies are using robot automation as a competitive advantage in order to be able to keep production in their original countries. The Factory-in-a-Box project in Sweden has as its main objective to research and develop technologies and working methods that can enable competitive production even if the salary-level is quite high. The focus is on mobile production modules that are flexible enough to be used over several applications or production sites. One of the topics of the project has been control of robotic working cells. A configuration and control software has been developed and tested during the project with promising results. This paper presents the process of development of the software and some of the components developed. The programming of the logical programs in the robotic working cell is done through an icon-based graphical programming style. The implemented software, called the Cell Configurator, was implemented as a prototype, which after testing was introduced into production at a production plant in Sweden. A claim for a patent has been filed by the researchers on some parts of the software solution.