Various assembly applications from the automotive industry - Handling of vehicle parts

The six-axis robot can respond more flexibly if the geometry of the axles to be handled changes. What is more, the three KUKA robots can accelerate so quickly that integrating them into the 65 second cycle time of the cell was no problem. Manual handling was not an option in any case, due to the weight of the axles and for ergonomic reasons. The camber setting system can now be used for all of the old model variants, as well as all of the new ones with multi-link rear suspensions.

• One KUKA KR 350 robot
• Two KUKA KR 125 robots
• Lightweight, automatically adjustable gripper
• PC-based KUKA robot controller, including control panel with Windows interface
• Robot programming
• Commissioning

• Increased output and improved quality
  
  The output of the camber setting system has increased by ten percent as a result of this restructuring. Moreover, the robots operate with greater precision than linear units, thus providing more consistent quality. As a consequence, the concept fulfills BMW’s requirements for reproducible quality of automatic screwed connections in the rear axle.
  
  
  
• High availability
  
  The availability of the robots is very high – nearly 100 percent.
  
  
  
• Simple operator control
  
  Simple operator control is important for the efficiency of the system. KUKA has made working with the controller much easier by equipping the Control Panel of the PC-based robot controller with a familiar Windows human/machine interface.