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Automated Sterilization of Work Spaces with disinfection top modules for mobile industrial robots Organizations have started to adapt to a new reality with restrictions in commercial activities and social distancing. In order to protect employees and businesses, Mobile Industrial Robots is providing flexible solutions, especially when it comes to disinfection processes. Their automated sterilization solution for work spaces is useful across a variety of sectors. Amid this current situation, MiR designed this UVC top module for plug and play on the MiR100/ MiR 200 Robot Base for quick deployment. The UV-C Lamps used are from American Ultraviolet™ which have more than 60,000 UV-C fixtures globally since 1960 and EPA Certified. It covers 360° with 8 UV-C 254nm lamps to deliver doses to eradicate pathogens on the surfaces and air. Providing 360° disinfection of floor and surfaces eradicating with 99.9% confidence level of many pathogens including coronavirus. Benefits of Using UV-C Disinfection Robots Able to disinfect large areas at a short amount of time without the worry of inconsistency To be fully autonomous to do scheduled disinfection without exposing an operator to do chemical disinfection Easy and fast deployment - Meet the safety standards and certification Download UV-C DIsinfection Robot Brochure Here

With the introduction of cobots (collaborative robots) into the manufacturing environment, many people struggle to understand the limits of cobots and rush to assume that every new application they see is a good fit for a cobot. There are several factors to look at when deciding between a cobot, a traditional robot, or a traditional robot with integrated safety components for an application. Amount of human interaction Proximity of human traffic Process positioning tolerances Part cycle times Complexity of integration Amount of human interaction: You should examine how often people step into the robot work area to do things such as adding raw materials or removing finished products frequently. If this interaction frequency is high to moderate, the best solution will lean towards a cobot or a highly safeguarded industrial robot. If this interaction is low or non-existent, any one of these solutions fit. Proximity of human traffic: Determine if other workers will be moving or working in very close proximity to the robot (within physical reach). If people are within reach of the robot, such as working side-by-side handling products coming down a conveyor line, the robot must be a cobot. This is one of the leading applications for implementing cobots. Due to their flexibility and ease of programming, they can be re-deployed to fill in for a worker shortage or add resources to the line during peak operational times. If human traffic is rare or only occurs in one particular area within reach of the robot, a safety guarded traditional robot may be the best choice and will have the benefit of higher speeds. Process positioning tolerances: Does your application need a robot that repeatedly goes to the same position within tenths of millimeters or does it need to be within twenty microns or less? Most cobots on the market have a positioning repeatability of +/- 0.1mm. This repeatability is sufficient in most applications where you teach a robot to perform a human-like function. If your application requires a higher degree of repeatability, you have two options. 1) Use a cobot along with mechanical aids to achieve better results. 2) Use a traditional robot which averages +/- 0.02mm and can achieve +/- 0.010mm on some models. Part cycle time: In many applications this one factor can drive the decision one direction or the other. Since cobots cannot move faster than the safety rating of 250mm/sec, the cycle times of your pick and place type processes can often take 3-5 seconds depending on grasping times and release times. Traditional robots have a typical pick and place cycle time of 1-1.5 seconds. This is one of the biggest differentiators between the two robot types. If the number of parts to be processed per minute is low, a cobot may be a good fit. If the parts per minute requirement gets up over 10PPM, you have two choices. 1) Use a cobot to perform a multi-part pick/process on accumulated parts. 2) Use a traditional robot for its high-speed capabilities. Complexity of integration: Integration complexity can range from a simple teach by demonstration pick-and-place program to creating a PC-based upper-level language application to control the robot using direct execution commands. Interaction with other third-party devices can also add to the complexity of integration. If your application is a simple pick and place of a fixtured part, then a cobot is an excellent choice since the complexity in programming is much less and could be classified by some as “fun”! Most cobots have the means to teach by demonstration. This means that the user manually moves the arm to positions and presses a teach button to memorize the locations. Even if your application includes vision to pick or place the part, a cobot may still be the best choice since some cobots do a fantastic job of seamlessly adding vision to an application without all the steps of setting up a camera system separately. Suppose your application requires utilization of factory protocols to control the robot, integration of a PLC or PC, or integrating third-party components into the system. In this case, a cobot may still be a choice, but the level of programming complexity increases dramatically. In most applications with this high level of sophistication, a traditional robot with all its existing infrastructure to complete the integration would be the best choice. In Summary: Cobots are a great fit to applications that require a medium to high amount of human interaction, as long as the system’s slower speed is acceptable. Industrial robots are a great fit for applications that require high precision or high speed ( > 250mm/sec). Safety guarded industrial robots are a great middle of the road fit where high speed and precision is needed but the robot must still work near or interact with people occasionally.

If you don’t have the right end of arm tooling for your application, it might not matter how good of a robot you pick. Robots and the end of arm tooling go hand in hand together. (Please read my other blog “5 Major Factors to Consider When Choosing a Robot” to get a better idea on how to choose a robot) Case 1: Let’s pick an application for a vacuum gripper, a bottle pack out machine. The bottles have flat caps and are fairly easy to get a seal with almost any vacuum cups that are the right size. Everything should go smoothly, right? That’s where it gets dangerous. Since the bottles are heavy, and the boxes that they go in are tight, the same vacuum cup with bellows will not work as good as the vacuum cups without any bellows. You have the risk of bottles peeling off from the cups easier with no bellows however, you lose a lot of the positional accuracy of the robot since bellows will introduce flexibility with the weight of the bottles. If the pack out boxes are too tight, the robot selection might not really matter if your bottles are drooping because of the wrong vacuum cup selection. Case 2: Let me give you a different application. A flexible feeding solution, Flexibowl with a Scara robot, Intelligent Actuator’s really fast IXA. My goto candy at the quarantine, Starbursts as the parts (I like the pink ones the best..). Let’s go with a parallel gripper to pick up these parts and place them in a stationary nest. The parallel gripper was picked for this application because it was the cost-effective solution. Now, let’s think about the application. A camera looks at the bowl, and finds a Starburst that is available to pick. Camera locates the candy, gives the coordinates to the robot. Sounds simple, works for about a couple of minutes and then the customer starts seeing crushed Starbursts. It turns out, the available Starburst pattern doesn’t actually look if there are any candies around it. So when the candies end up next to each other, the fingers of the parallel gripper crushes the candy that’s next to the one the robot is going to pick. Parallel gripper was picked because of cost savings. However, with the time that got spent on vision programming made this solution way more expensive than a vacuum pick solution. Case 3: This time I am going to give an example from the quotation stage of an application. A simple deburring application. Robot will pick up a part from a nest, debur it, and bring it back to its place. A vacuum gripper might be able to get this application done, however, it is going to make the robot programming a little bit harder compared to using a 2 finger gripper. In a deburring application, depending on the amount of material that needs to be taken off, a vacuum grip might see a lot of lateral forces acting on the cup which might result in the part falling off the gripper. Going at a slower pace might help but now the programmer needs to take this into consideration. On the other hand, using a 2 finger gripper, having the clamping force high, the probability of the part falling out of the finger is lower. Case 4: This time, we chose the right gripper and selected the OnRobot RG2 for the application. The goal was to save some cost so the very versatile default fingers were used in a very critical precise application. Robot’s repeatability specs are well under the specifications that the part needs to be at. Customer realizes that the Cognex vision system picks up some variability in the finished part, at the inspection process. The vision system gets checked, the robot positions get checked but nothing could be found. It takes 2 days of engineering time to troubleshoot the system that the part was slipping slightly from the fingers of the gripper. The need for this application was to get a custom set of machined fingers that fits the parts exactly right so we could use the full power of the awesome RG2 gripper. To sum up, choosing the right end of arm tooling will make a project go smoother and might actually be more important than which robot to use in some cases. When a challenging application gets presented to me, I think about how to handle the part because if I succeed at that portion of the project, the rest will be easier.

Adding a seventh axis to your six-axis robotic system can be beneficial in a number of ways. Your work envelope is expanded, allowing the use of smaller, less-expensive robots. Parts can also be transferred to multiple workstations at greater distances, and more machines and processes are able to be serviced with one robot, which reduces costs. Although the idea of using a linear actuator to move a robot into position sounds simple enough, many factors go into making sure the setup is correctly sized and specified including load capacity, speed, acceleration and, duty cycle. This white paper provides important information about how to add a seventh axis to a six-axis robot system. Download the White Paper…

The RV-FR series robot’s “Next-Generation Intelligent Functions” make it simple to carry out work that has always defied automation.With an extensive selection of arm sizes, configurations and protection ratings the MELFA RV-FR-Series line of robots are ready to tackle all of your automation needs. The RV-FR series offers a highly-dynamic 6-axis articulated robot for a high degree of quality. The double-arm structure not only provides a plus in terms of freedom of movement, but also more stability and versatility. The RV-FR series offers 3 additional features: “Next-generation intelligent functions”, “Safe, collaborative work applications”, and “FA-IT integration functions”. With the MELFA Safe Plus feature “safe, collaborative work applications” allow robots and people to work together with high levels of safety while still providing the speed and performance the industry demands.

The high-speed IXA SCARA Robot holds the fastest cycle times and yet achieves a lower price than previous SCARA models. The arch motion smoothly blends both horizontal and vertical motion to accomplish continuous high-speed cycle times. Fastest Cycle Times : The following measurements were taken during arch motion cycle operation under the following conditions. Achieves a Lower Price : The new SCARA robot is even more affordable than previous models. Plus, it offers even better performance and functionality. Low Vibration, Accurate Positioning : Higher rigidity and optimized control mean significantly less vibration while stopping. Equipped with a Battery-less Absolute Encoder as Standard : There is no need to replace batteries and less maintenance. Mechanical Structure/Features Download IXA Brochure

Mecademic robot arms are intended for industrial use in a wide range of applications including precision assembly, testing & inspection, microprecision positioning, pick & place, and dispensing. The Meca500 is already put to work in various industry sectors such as electronics, pharmaceutical, and health. The Meca500 Ultracompact Robot Arm is less than half the size of other small industrial robots, and its controller is embedded in its base, eliminating the need for a bulky external cabinet.