It's absolutely possible for a robot to replace a five-axis machine tool with flexible laser cutting!
the application of robot flexible laser cutting in automobile industry is becoming increasingly common, which is closely related to the development of laser technology and the perfection of robot precise trajectory control technology.
There are various ways of robot flexible laser cutting, which can be made into a single robot cutting platform or combined into a flexible processing production line. The workpieces involved are mainly two different types of parts: one is the 3D car body structure and covering parts formed by extrusion or drawing of metal parts, including thermoformed parts; The other is tubular metal structure, including exhaust pipe, cross beam, etc. The traditional production method of panel is to punch by opening a die, and then carry out punching die and trimming die. Thermoformed parts and pipe fittings are finished by expensive five-axis laser cutting machine tools. It is precisely because of the high equipment cost that only some automobile manufacturers with joint venture brands have the ability to purchase imported five-axis machine tools.
under the new situation, the needs of automobile users are becoming diversified and personalized, and more and more new models are emerging. Most cars are gradually shrinking in batches, because some car manufacturers can't predict and guarantee the sales volume and stable output of a certain model in the future, so they start to try low-cost robot laser flexible cutting equipment or production lines. This trend started from the auto spare parts market, and continued to expand and popularize in the fields of construction machinery, buses, agricultural vehicles and electric vehicles.
Laser cutting robot suitable for the automobile industry
Many industrial robots are used in the automobile industry, but they are rarely used in the field of laser cutting. There are three problems. First, the application of robots in the automobile industry mainly focuses on spot welding, arc welding, spraying, handling, etc., which require low accuracy, but laser cutting often requires high position accuracy, and has high requirements for small trajectory accuracy such as small circles; On the other hand, it depends on the efficiency of the robot. Generally, the motion control speed of each joint of the robot is slow, and the robot arm is too heavy to move at high speed. The third aspect is the rigidity of the robot. The robot with poor rigidity shakes badly, the robot has poor tracking performance, and the robot is deformed badly, so it can't accurately reach the exact position that needs to be cut in the numerical model of the workpiece. Therefore, it is understandable that the robot popular in the traditional automobile industry is questioned by customers in laser cutting.
with a hundred years' experience in precision machinery and high-speed motion control, the widest design field is the automobile industry. According to the demand of the automobile industry, Stobier implemented the flexible cutting system solution of RX16L inverted gantry robot in laser, and the system has made breakthroughs in the following aspects:
Large-size robot with wide width. Adopt RX16L robot, 2.5? M, the width of the cutting table can reach 3? M, which exceeds the workbench width of the expensive five-axis machine tool. Generally, the size of automobile parts is within the working area of RX16L flip-chip robot, and some large workpieces can also be realized by moving the platform.
the arm is light and rigid. Stauble adopts integral casting tubular structure to maintain rigidity; The material is aviation cast aluminum with small deformation but light weight. RX16L robot arm weighs only 25? Kg, while the number of robots with the same arm in Europe is more than 4? Kg, which is not suitable for flexible laser cutting of robots.
mechanical accuracy difference of robots. In addition to the rigidity difference, the most important difference of robot mechanical accuracy lies in the error of mechanical transmission, which is mainly reflected in the reducer. The unique patented deceleration system JCS adopted by Stauble has successfully applied more than 1 years of experience and technology in precision machinery to robots. This is why Stauble can be recognized by customers in small hole cutting.
The successful transplantation of five-axis machine tool technology to robot
Off-line programming technology and automatic generation of fixture are one of the key technologies in the machine tool industry. The development and successful application of these technologies in the robot field make the robot flexible laser cutting solution seamlessly linked with the application in the automobile industry.
The traditional robot programming method is on-line teaching programming, which is time-consuming and laborious, especially for automobile panels or pipe fittings, which need to cut complex spatial curves, so teaching can not meet the design requirements.
stauber uses ROBOTMASTER software for ST? Offline programming of UBLI RX16L robot. ROBOTMASTER robot offline software can simulate the real cutting environment, including robot, laser cutting tool head, workpiece and fixture. The software can quickly set and optimize the best robot cutting posture. If the system interferes or goes out of range, the software will give an intelligent prompt.
Off-line software can also automatically vivid and precise fixture. British PEPS offline software is specially designed for the world's most sophisticated robot ST? Off-line programming software for robot laser cutting customized by UBLI. It can provide a program for automatically generating fixtures, and users can select fixtures according to the three-dimensional mathematical model of the workpiece and make fine adjustments.
many integrators choose ordinary robots that are not suitable for laser cutting, which is inefficient and ineffective, which affects the cognition of users in the automotive industry in this field and denies the robot scheme. Stobier believes that excellent integrators will choose high-precision robots and integrate them into the precise system structure. According to different users' products, they will evolve from the basic type to different flexible cutting schemes of robots, which can be combined by single machine, two machines or multiple machines and platforms.
cutting efficiency is determined by scheme and experience
the integration ability of integrators determines the final cutting effect and efficiency. JENOPTIK, Germany, is a laser application integrator of Stauble. It adopts TX9 laser cutting robot customized by Stauble, customized light cutting head and unique BIM(Beam-In-Motion) technology. Can the pinhole positioning accuracy of this equipment be achieved? 5? M, linear speed > 12? m/min。 If the product output is relatively high, JENOPTIK can provide dual-machine equipment or multi-robot solutions.
some local laser cutting system integrators with strong technical strength are also constantly improving their understanding of robot laser cutting and their integration ability. In the robot laser cutting solution applied by Shenzhen Dazu Laser in the automobile industry, Stoubier's robot products are selected. This system includes two mobile working platforms, and the robot switches between the workpieces on the two platforms, and the non-working mobile platform is launched for feeding. The customer of this system is a bus factory, and the person in charge of the equipment in the factory is very satisfied with it. It not only has good cutting effect, but also has high efficiency, and the double-station platform will not waste the time of feeding. At present, this customer has purchased nearly ten Stobier robot equipment. Moreover, they plan to redesign a stamping line and replace a die stamping line with a robot flexible production line, including the material transfer in the process, which may be as high as dozens of robots. Using robots not only saves costs, but also improves the level of automation, and the whole process does not require manual intervention.
It will take some time for various domestic car factories to initially accept the robot flexible laser cutting method. Integrators need to further improve the robot integration ability, improve the accuracy and speed of the system, especially the safety and stability of the system, so that users in the automobile industry can gradually adopt the robot flexible laser cutting solution in batches. ;