Virtual Reality Enabled Manufacturing of Challenging Workpieces

Increasing automation in the manufacturing workpieces demands increased flexibility of the manufacturing system when it comes to part handling and selecting suitable manufacturing parameters. In some cases, this can be fulfilled by intelligent manufacturing systems working autonomously, but with increasingly challenging workpieces human-robot collaboration may be required to bring the experience of a human expert into the loop. While human-robot collaboration may be achieved by improving robot safety systems to allow humans to work in close proximity with robots, an alternative approach is to implement Virtual Reality (VR) environment. In this paper, we demonstrate measuring a 3D workpiece, importing the workpiece model into a VR environment and manipulating the workpiece. The technology allows adding sensory information usually not available by adding thermal imaging or simulating audio cues. The research problem of the study is the positioning accuracy issue of sheet metal production while using industrial robots. The research question is how the workpieces and jigs can be scanned the way that the positioning and the angular misalignment can be measured and corrected on robot controller. The study indicates that a laser sensor can be used to measure object dimensions with sufficient accuracy for robot assembly. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.