The application of robot flexible laser cutting in automobile industry is becoming more and more common, which is closely related to the development of laser technology and the perfection of robot precise trajectory control technology.
There are many 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 body structure and covering parts formed by extrusion or stretching of metal parts, including thermoformed parts; The other is tubular metal structure, including exhaust pipe, cross beam and so on. The traditional panel production method is to open the die and punch, and then carry out punching die and trimming die. Thermoforming parts and pipe fittings are completed by expensive five-axis laser cutting machine tools. It is precisely because of the high cost of equipment that some automobile manufacturers with joint venture brands have the ability to purchase imported five-axis machine tools.
Under the new situation, the demand of automobile users is more and more diversified and personalized, and more and more new models are available. 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 began in the auto parts market and has been expanding and popularizing in the fields of construction machinery, buses, agricultural vehicles and electric vehicles.
Laser cutting robot suitable for automobile industry
Many industrial robots are used in the automobile industry, but rarely in the field of laser cutting. The problem exists at three levels. 1. The application of robots in automobile industry mainly focuses on spot welding, arc welding, spraying and handling. Low accuracy is required, but laser cutting often requires high position accuracy and high accuracy for small tracks 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 robot is slow, and the mechanical arm is too heavy to move at high speed. The third aspect is the rigidity of the robot. Robots with poor rigidity have serious jitter, poor tracking performance and serious deformation, and cannot accurately reach the exact position to be cut in the numerical model of the workpiece. Therefore, it is understandable that the robots popular in the traditional automobile industry are questioned by customers in laser cutting.
With a hundred years of experience in precision machinery and high-speed motion control, Steubel's design field is the automotive industry. According to the demand of automobile industry, Stebel realized the solution of the laser flexible cutting system of RX 160L inverted gantry robot, and made breakthroughs in the following aspects:
Large robot with wide face. Adopt RX 160L robot, 2.05? 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 RX 160L flip-chip robot, and some large-scale workpieces can also be realized by moving platform.
The arms are light and hard. Stable use of integral casting tubular structure to maintain rigidity; The material is aviation cast aluminum, with small deformation but light weight. RX 160L manipulator weighs only 250? Kg, and the number of robots with the same arm in Europe is more than 400? Kg, not suitable for robot flexible laser cutting.
Mechanical accuracy difference of robots. The difference of mechanical accuracy of robots, besides stiffness difference, is the most important error of mechanical transmission, which is mainly reflected in the reducer. JCS, a unique patented deceleration system adopted by Stauble, has successfully applied more than 0/00 years of experience and technology in the field of precision machinery to robots. This is also the reason why Stauble can be recognized by customers in small hole cutting.
The five-axis machine tool technology was successfully transplanted to the robot.
Off-line programming technology and automatic fixture generation technology are one of the key technologies to be popularized in 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.
Stauble uses ROBOTMASTER software for ST? Off-line programming of UBLI RX 160L 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 is disturbed or out of range, the software will give an intelligent prompt.
Off-line software can also automatically clamp vividly and accurately. 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 and make fine adjustments according to the three-dimensional mathematical model of the workpiece.
Many integrators choose ordinary robots that are not suitable for laser cutting, which has low efficiency and poor effect, which affects the cognition of users in the automobile industry in this field and denies the robot scheme. Stobier believes that excellent integrators will choose high-precision robots and integrate them into precise system structures. According to the products of different users, it will evolve from the basic type to different flexible cutting schemes of robots, which can be combined by single machine, double machine or multi-machine and multi-platform.
Cutting efficiency is determined by scheme and experience.
The integration ability of integrators determines the final cutting effect and efficiency. JENOPTIK of Germany is a laser application integrator of Stauble. The TX90 laser cutting robot customized by Stauble, customized optical cutting head and unique BIM(Beam-In-Motion) technology are adopted. Can the pinhole positioning accuracy of this equipment be achieved? 50m, linear velocity >; 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 and integration ability of robot laser cutting. Stobier's robot products are selected in the robot laser cutting solution applied by Shenzhen Dazu Laser in the automobile industry. This system includes two mobile working platforms, the robot switches between the workpieces on the two platforms, and the non-working mobile platform launches and feeds. The customer of this system is a bus factory, and the person in charge of the equipment in the factory is very satisfied. Not only the cutting effect is good, but also the efficiency is high, and the double-station platform will not waste the feeding time. At present, the customer has purchased nearly ten Stobier robot devices. Moreover, they plan to redesign a stamping line and replace the die stamping line with a robot flexible production line, including 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 domestic automakers to initially accept the flexible laser cutting method of robots. 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.
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