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US 12,151,373 B2Granted
Reconfigurable robotic manufacturing cells
AssigneeGoogle Inc.
InventorsNivedita Ravi, John William Zevenbergen, IV, Joseph Neil Reichenbach, Toby Ge Xu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A manufacturing process adopting the reconfigurable robotic manufacturing cells that can work conjointly and yet have the capabilities to be reconfigured to disconnect from other cells and handle multiple tasks. The reconfigurable robotic cell is not dependent on any other robotic cells to complete work in progress.
Claims14
A system, comprising:
- a plurality of robotic cells that are each configurable to perform a plurality of manufacturing processing steps in a manufacturing process, wherein:
- each robotic cell includes a set of end effectors and is operable to select from the set of end effectors a selected set of end effectors to perform an assigned manufacturing process step, wherein the assigned manufacturing processing step is one of the manufacturing processing steps in the manufacturing process;
- and
- the set of end effectors for each robotic cell includes end effectors to form a selected set for at least one of the manufacturing processing steps;
- and
- a conveyance system that delivers materials to the robotic cells for processing according to the respective assigned manufacturing processing steps;
- and
- a manufacturing execution system in data communication with each of the robotic cells that is configured to:
- receive data describing a status of the manufacturing process, the data describing, for each robotic cell configured to perform a manufacturing processing step, a status of the robotic cell;
- based on the status of each of the robotic cells described by received data, determine to reconfiguring a first robotic cell performing a first manufacturing processing step to perform a second manufacturing processing step, wherein the second manufacturing processing step is different from the first manufacturing processing step and instruct the first robotic cell to reconfigure from a selected first set of end effectors for performing the first manufacturing processing step to a selected second set of end effectors for performing the second manufacturing processing step;
- and
- in response to instructing the first robotic cell to reconfigure from the selected first set of end effectors for performing the first manufacturing processing step to the selected second set of end effectors for performing the second manufacturing processing step, instruct the conveyance system to reconfigure from delivering materials to be processed by the first manufacturing processing step to the first robotic cell to delivering materials to be processed by the second manufacturing processing step to the first robotic cell.
9 more elements
A method for performing a plurality of manufacturing processing steps, the method comprising:
- selecting, by each of a plurality of robotic cells that each includes a set of end effectors, a selected set of end effectors from the set of end effectors to perform an assigned manufacturing process step, wherein:
- the assigned manufacturing processing step is one of the manufacturing processing steps in the manufacturing process;
- and
- the set of end effectors for each robotic cell includes end effectors to form a selected set for at least one of the manufacturing processing steps;
- receiving, by a manufacturing execution system in data communication with each of the robotic cells, data describing a status of the manufacturing process, the data describing, for each robotic cell configured to perform a manufacturing processing step, a status of the robotic cell;
- based on the status of each of the robotic cells described by received data:
- reconfiguring a first robotic cell performing a first manufacturing processing step to perform a second manufacturing processing step, wherein the second manufacturing processing step is different from the first manufacturing processing step and instruct the first robotic cell to reconfigure from a selected first set of end effectors for performing the first manufacturing processing step to a selected second set of end effectors for performing the second manufacturing processing step;
- and
- in response to reconfiguring from the selected first set of end effectors for performing the first manufacturing processing step to the selected second set of end effectors for performing the second manufacturing processing step, instruct a conveyance system to reconfigure from delivering materials to be processed by the first manufacturing processing step to the first robotic cell to delivering materials to be processed by the second manufacturing processing step to the first robotic cell.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.