Method of inserting an electronic components in through-hole technology, THT, into a printed circuit board, PCB, by an industrial robot

A method of inserting an electronic component in through-hole technology (THT) into a printed circuit board (PCB) by an industrial robot, comprising steps of:

• a) grabbing, by means of a tool mounted to an end-effector of the industrial robot, the electronic component to be inserted into the PCB;
• b) moving the tool to a starting position that is 2-15 mm above the PCB and is up to 3-10 mm away from a final position of the electronic component;
• c) acquiring at least one image showing the tool, the electronic component and the PCB;
• d) calculating, on a basis of the at least one image, at least one movement instruction for the industrial robot, wherein an admittance controller is used to provide an absolute tool position on a basis of the at least one movement instruction and the admittance controller operates on an equation:
• {umlaut over (x)}(t)=M−1(Wext(t)−D{dot over (x)}(t)−K(x(t)−xd))
• where K, D and M represent respectively stiffness, damping and inertia matrices, and where the Wext(t) is represents the contact forces, xd and x(t) represent respectively the final position and a current position, and a control signal is first computed by integrating the acceleration {umlaut over (x)} and the obtained velocity {dot over (x)};
• e) adjusting a position of the tool on a basis of the at least one movement instruction;
• and
• f) repeating steps c), d), and e) until the electronic component is in the final position.

A method of inserting an electronic component in through-hole technology (THT) into a printed circuit board (PCB) by an industrial robot, comprising steps of:

• a) grabbing, by means of a tool mounted to an end-effector of the industrial robot, the electronic component to be inserted into the PCB;
• b) moving the tool to a starting position that is 2-15 mm above the PCB and is up to 3-10 mm away from a final position of the electronic component;
• c) acquiring at least one image showing the tool, the electronic component and the PCB and downsizing the at least one image to 128×128 pixels;
• d) calculating, on a basis of the at least one image, at least one movement instruction for the industrial robot, wherein an admittance controller is used to provide an absolute tool position on a basis of the at least one movement instruction and the admittance controller operates on an equation:
• {umlaut over (x)}(t)=M−1(Wext(t)−D{dot over (x)}(t)−K(x(t)−xd))
• where K, D and M represent respectively stiffness, damping and inertia matrices, and where the Wext (t) represents the contact forces, xd and x(t) represent respectively the final position and a current position, and a control signal is first computed by integrating the acceleration {umlaut over (x)} and the obtained velocity {dot over (x)};
• and wherein the at least one movement instruction is further generated by a reinforcement-learning agent implementing a Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) algorithm that exchanges commands and feedback with the admittance controller at a frequency of about 10 Hz, the feedback comprising six-axis force-torque data and relative tool-center-point pose information;
• e) adjusting a position of the tool on a basis of the at least one movement instruction;
• and
• f) repeating steps c), d), and e) until the electronic component is in the final position.