New Design Concepts in Computer Assisted Design of Robotic Flexible Manufacturing Cell for Part's Turning

Abstract

This paper presents the works performed by the authors in the field of robotic machine tending applications, focusing on flexible manufacturing cells (FMC) integrating industrial robots (IR) performing CNC machine tool's and machining center's loading / unloading tasks. Considering different types of parts typically manufactured and a rough classification of these parts with respect to their specific shape and size, a three manufacturing cell design principles are proposed for different work piece category. Following these general guidelines, for each proposed principle, an example of cell structure and 3D CAD model was developed using CATIA software. Each flexible manufacturing cell has a specific structure pattern, different layouts being discussed including part storage / transport system, CNC lathes / turning centers machining capabilities and articulated arm / hybrid kinematic type IR specific embedding into the FMC. The core of the article is focused on presenting the structure of each proposed FMC specific approaches in promoting very recent technical developments / new products embedding, as well as full integration of presented new design concepts in turning part's manufacturing FMC.