How to integrate industrial robots with CNC machine tools?

With the transformation and upgrading of China's equipment manufacturing industry, in the dual role of market demand and technological progress, the integration of industrial robots and CNC machine tools has developed rapidly in recent years, and the form of application has been expanding, bringing new impetus to the current trend of intelligent machine tools. Moving, the transformation and upgrading of China's machine tool industry will also play a beneficial role in promoting.

In view of the development status of robot development and integration with machine tools, how related companies should establish an effective organizational liaison mechanism to enhance communication and cooperation, and how the two industries should integrate and develop what kind of technical specifications and standards to establish in order to fully share resources and Complementary advantages, and form a joint force of industrial development!

The robot industry is ushering in a period of golden opportunity for development. How to promote the integration and development of the industrial robot industry and the machine tool industry? How to achieve the integration of industrial robots and CNC machine tools has become an important topic in the current upgrading of the modern equipment manufacturing industry.

Many jobs in the machine tool manufacturing process rely mainly on the physical strength and skills of the workers. They have low production efficiency, labor intensity, and lack of skilled technicians. It is difficult to ensure product stability and consistency, and the machine tool industry is increasingly adopting industrial robots and intelligent manufacturing. Technology to transform traditional process flow. In the past, expensive imported robots and production lines were mainly used in a few industries such as automobiles, and the application ratio in the machine tool industry and other equipment manufacturing industries was relatively low, which greatly restricted the degree of automation in the domestic machine tool industry.

1 The status quo of the two major industries

After the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” and “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” two five-year plans and ten years of grinding and one sword, the development of China's CNC machine tool industry has entered the stage of mid-scale industrialization, high-end and small-batch production, and the overall level of the industry is basically capable of international competition. force. CNC system as the control brain of CNC machine tools, domestic CNC system manufacturers have mastered the control technology of five-axis linkage, small segment interpolation, dynamic error compensation, and also developed a high-performance, high-power servo drive device, independent research and development to promote technological innovation and Progress has also given rise to the embryonic form of the industrial robot industry and promoted the development of the industry.

At present, CNC system development companies, machine tool companies, automation application integrators, and even real estate capitalists are all trying to enter the field of robotics, setting off a hot investment in the robot industry. What people are worried about is that the “encumbered economy” brought about by excessive policy guidance, overcapacity brought about by over-investment by industry, and low-end homogenous competition brought about by lack of innovation drive will all bring the robot industry into Disorderly development. It is worth considering that what kind of company is best suited to developing industrial robots?

How to improve the overall quality of the robot industry? In general, companies that have the foundation of numerical control systems, control systems, servo motors, and servo control systems that can mass produce have certain advantages. The FUNAC company's industrial advancement route is a typical case of success and worthy of reference and reference.

Several domestic CNC system companies have entered the industrial robot industry one after another, and they have taken the lead in Guangzhou CNC. Since 2006, they have planned to develop the industrial robot industry, which has gone through eight years. With the experience accumulated in the production of its own controllers, servo drives and servo motors, it has completed its own independent development of serialization of industrial robots. The products cover 3 to 200 kg. Functions include handling, machine tool loading and unloading, welding, palletizing, and gluing. Polishing, cutting, painting, sorting, assembly, etc.

With the rise of labor costs, lack of skilled personnel, high-risk environmental protection, high-intensity operations and other issues highlighted, industrial robots have been widely recognized and continuously used in manufacturing, and have become the focus of social concern. The government is also using this to promote industrial transformation and upgrading. Enterprises use it to carry out technological transformation, change production methods, and improve operational efficiency. However, China’s robot ownership is not large, national brands are still under cultivation, and the overall competitiveness needs to be improved. So, what kind of model will the robot industry develop? The author believes that at this stage, the collaborative development of the entire industrial chain of robot companies, robot key component suppliers, and robot integrators is needed.

2 Integration of Robots and CNC Machines

In the field of numerically-controlled machine tool processing applications, the integration of local machine tool loading and unloading robots and numerical control machine tools has been developed at the forefront. From the industrial application level, there have also been major changes:

(1) Work Island: Single-to-single-unit motivation plus single-to-many online processing.

(2) Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS): Based on the network-controlled flexible machine line addition, the PLC control platform is used, and multiple robots, multiple CNC machine tools and their auxiliary equipments are connected to the group cable by means of an industrial Ethernet bus. Beats for orderly automatic production.

(3) Digital workshop: With CADCAMCAPPSMES assisted production tools, logistics technology and sensor technology, it has the functions of production process monitoring, real-time feedback of online faults, processing process data management, tool information management, equipment maintenance data management, product information records, etc. The demand for unmanned processing realizes the production planning, coordination and optimization of operation of the processing system.

(4) Smart factory: With the help of intelligent workshop layout and ERP information management system, it will bring innovation to traditional production methods to the maximum. The database of the information management system can be interfaced with various external information systems through the gateway, and the workshop can be connected to the ERP system to query the production status of the workshop to realize the efficient configuration of enterprise resources. With the help of its short message platform and mail platform, it can be performed to the administrator. Real-time reporting of equipment failures, production schedules, and other information.

3 Ways for the integration and development of industrial robots and CNC machine tools

1. Processing and manufacturing

The robot participates in the machine tool structure processing and manufacturing to achieve automation, the special machine tool serves the precise processing of the robot special reducer, and improves the processing technology quality and the batch production efficiency, etc., and has a great potential for integration and development. With the strategic cooperation of both companies, robotics companies can use the manufacturing and process technology capabilities of machine tool manufacturers to achieve the following goals:

(1) Body-casting and speed reducer structural parts for robots are jointly researched to form batch precision manufacturing technologies, to increase the mass production capacity and technological level of robots, to overcome reliability and consistency technology, and to achieve efficient, stable, and precise beat production.

(2) For robot tooling, fixtures, machine-integrated production line integration capabilities, with the help of the vast end-customer channel resources of major machine tool plants, commissioned to promote the use of robots.

(3) Research and development of industrial robots that are needed for automatic and flexible production of machine tools and production lines for cutting and parts handling, scraping, chamfering, polishing, welding, and spraying (powder), etc. Machine tools companies and industrial robot companies jointly develop , to achieve the automatic processing of the whole machine parts, and promote the improvement of machine tool manufacturing technology.

(4) Key components of industrial robots, such as rotary disks, booms, boxes, support sleeves, small arms, wrists, etc., are required to have high dimensional accuracy and form-position tolerance. They are used for mechanical processing equipment and fixtures. There are high requirements for quantity inspection tools; structural optimization and processing of key components such as cycloidal gear case, planetary pin wheel, eccentric shaft and planet carrier of the robot reducer, the current domestic processing equipment, assembly process, precision detection, etc. Still difficult to reach. However, based on the use of domestic CNC machine tools and tools to complete the relevant processing, it will help improve China's high-end precision machinery parts design and processing level, and promote the application of domestic CNC equipment and domestic CNC machine tools and development.

2. In terms of integrated applications

Machine tool loading and unloading robot to achieve machine plus flexible production line will be a convenient and effective promotion method. The number of domestic CNC machine tools is approximately 2 million units. The robot companies' first application of the machine tool loading and unloading flexible machine plus production line will have a great market demand, and it will also help facilitate the automation and digitization of machine components such as machine tools and robots. The networked production method can realize process intelligent control and information management, can increase production efficiency and product quality, and improve the level of process management until the overall level of the equipment manufacturing industry is promoted. For example, Guangzhou CNC has formed strategic partnerships with machine tool manufacturers such as Dalian Machine Tool and Baoji Machine Tool Co., Ltd. to jointly develop robot-specific processing machine tools, processing technology applications, and robotic robots with automatic flexible production and application projects, which have promoted the mutual integration of the two parties into their respective industrial applications.

There is a gap between the domestic robots and the machine tool industry and the international advanced level, especially as an industrial robot in emerging industries, which started later than the domestic machine tool industry, regardless of the manufacturing process level, control system, or integrated application experience; regardless of the maturity of technical standards, or professional personnel The degree of ownership has all constrained the current pace of development. It is still necessary to seek progress in exploration. However, we believe that the deep integration of the two is of great significance for improving the overall competitiveness of China's equipment manufacturing industry.