Smart Material Feeder for Pakistani Manufacturers

The project is a proof of concept for the up-gradation of the manual manufacturing feeding process to autonomous feeding using integrated sensors and a robotic manipulator. Currently, the manufacturing industries in Pakistan use manual labor to set/feed raw material within CNC or conventional machin

Project Title

Smart Material Feeder for Pakistani Manufacturers

Project Area of Specialization

Mechatronics Engineering

Project Summary

The project is a proof of concept for the up-gradation of the manual manufacturing feeding process to autonomous feeding using integrated sensors and a robotic manipulator. Currently, the manufacturing industries in Pakistan use manual labor to set/feed raw material within CNC or conventional machines. The manual process leads to some error that affects the dimensional accuracy and overall product durability regardless of how efficient the worker is. As the manufacturing sector contributes 12.59% of the country’s total GDP, these human errors decrease the overall productivity of the industry, hence; affecting the country’s economy on a larger picture. This project is a prototype demonstration of material handling in which the delta DRVl90 robotic arm and Siege CNC milling machine KX1, two different machines from the different manufacturers are integrated with one another through a single communication protocol. An end-effector was designed and fabricated for DRVl90 to pick and place material within the automated chuck. Since the available CNC machine had a manual chuck, an automated step-controlled chuck is designed to grip material for machining once a robotic manipulator has fed it in. The end-effector, after placing the raw material communicates the CNC to start processing and wait until the machining stops. After machining, the manipulator unclamps the workpiece and sends it for further processing, the system will continue to work in the loop until it senses the availability of raw material and if no material were available then the system would go on its idle state to reduce electricity consumption.

Project Objectives

This final year project includes the following objectives:

1. To interface the electrically actuated milling machine chuck and the delta articulated robot.

 2. To design and fabricate a four-claw jaw which is the end effector of Delta Articulated Robot.

 3. To design and fabricate an electrically actuated work piece clamping system using a chuck of CNC milling machine.

Project Implementation Method

In our FYP, the DELTA DRVl90 robotic arm controller acts as the master and Arduino Uno is the slave. Arduino is to control the chuck actuating motor and the end effector motor. The signal generated through Arduino is the input signal for the drivers. Arduino is dependent on the command generated by the DELTA DRVl90 robotic arm. The material availability sensor is to check the availability of the workpiece whether it is available or not. If the workpiece is available, then the DELTA DRVl90 robotic arm picks it up and places it in the chuck and the workpiece is ready to be machined. After the completion of machining a signal is sent from the CNC milling machine to DELTA DRVl90 robotic arm controller to remove the workpiece and replace it with a new one. The chuck and the robotic claw can be controlled manually as well as automatically. Another salient feature of our FYP project is with this specifically designed four claw jaw we can grip and pick up a wide range of cylindrical workpieces. We are controlling our chuck with an electric motor to actuate rather than pneumatic, hydraulic, or any other actuating systems.

Benefits of the Project

Further developed wellbeing. DELTA DRVl90 robotic arms assist with protecting laborers by working in conditions that are dangerous and executing assignments that can high risk of injury to people.

Further developed effectiveness and efficiency. DELTA DRVl90 robotic arms can work 24 hours per day, seven days every week without exhausting, permitting organizations to keep creation, investigations, or different undertakings going persistently to increment yield.

Upgraded precision. By their actual nature, DELTA DRVl90 robotic arm performs more reliably and precisely than people for assignments that require outrageous accuracy or consistency.

More noteworthy flexibility. As business needs change, DELTA DRVl90 robotic arms can without much of a stretch be reused for new exercises or mounted onto various stages, such as autonomous versatile robots (AMRs), a fixed mechanical production system stage depending on the situation.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

There are two sections of our project on the basis of hardware. The first section of our hardware includes a chuck actuating system and the second one is the end-effector for the DELTA DRVl90 robotic arm. First of all, the chuck includes given components. It has two-bed plates, a milling chuck, and a NEMA 23 stepper motor. The two-bed plates are fixed together with the help of four ALLEN-key bolts. NEMA 23 is bolted with the shaft of the chuck supported with a coupler. Chuck and NEMA 23 stepper both are mounted on the bed plates. The two-bed plates are made up of mild steel and the other two components i-e stepper and chuck are made up of companies' standardized materials.

The end-effector is made up of aluminum and the NEMA 17 stepper being used in it is a company standardized material. The end-effector is assembled using ten types of individual parts. These components are explained as follows: The first component is the lower plate. This plate is connected to the joint six of the DELTA robot. The second component is the top plate. The top plate is connected with the lower plate through spacers. The third component is the base link gripper. It is fitted on the top plate. The fourth part is the shaft link. It is connected to the brass piece. M8 brass piece is the fifth component. It moves up/down with the motion of the stepper motor. Link two is the sixth piece. It is connected with shaft link and link one. The seventh part is Link one. It joins the base link gripper to the gripping link. The eighth part is the gripping link. The ninth component is the spacer. The last (tenth) part is the NEMA 17 screw shaft stepper motor. It is mounted on the top plate. Quantity of the parts used in the assembly of end-effector. It has one lower plate, one top plate, four base link grippers, one shaft link, one M8 brass nut, thirty-five pieces, four-link two pieces, sixteen link one-pieces, four gripping links, four spacers, and one NEMA 17 screw shaft stepper motor. 

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated system

Core Industry

Manufacturing

Other Industries

Core Technology

Robotics

Other Technologies

Sustainable Development Goals

Gender Equality, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Required Resources

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