Abstract
This paper presents a set of performance metrics, test methods, and associated artifacts to help progress the development and deployment of robotic assembly systems. The designs for three task board artifacts that replicate small part insertion and fastening operations such as threading, snap fitting, and meshing with standard screws, nuts, washers, gears, electrical connectors, belt drives, and wiring are presented. To support the evaluation of robotic assembly and disassembly operations, benchmarking protocols and performance metrics are presented that leverage these task boards. Finally, robot competitions are discussed as use cases for these task boards.
Highlights
T HE rapid progression of underlying technologies has the potential to accelerate the usage of robots in fine manipulation tasks found in manufacturing assembly operations
We focus on speed and reliability metrics both directly and through the use of point based scoring to support competitions
To support laboratory benchmarking of robotic systems, the probability of success is based on a number of task board trials and the number of completed assembly parts
Summary
T HE rapid progression of underlying technologies has the potential to accelerate the usage of robots in fine manipulation tasks found in manufacturing assembly operations. Is one of the most complex operations in manufacturing, yet automation, especially robotics, has not seen wide adoption. This is due to the inability of robot technologies to cost-effectively support the tight tolerances and component variability associated with assembly. Instead, specialized fixtures, end-effectors, and compliance mechanisms are employed that increase cost and time to the setup of each new assembly process. This strategy becomes intractable for the low-volume, high-mixture manufacturing paradigm. This letter was recommended for publication by Associate Editor B. The long term goal of this work is to inform future technical specifications of robot systems for choosing the best system for an intended application space [3]
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