Multi-station collaborative robot welding and cutting fabrication system and methods
AssigneeVectis Automation, LLC
InventorsAndrew Akey, Joshua Pawley, Douglas Rhoda, Todd Scrapella, Brendan DeJonge
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A highly mobile multi-station collaborative robot fabrication system for the assembly, construction, fabrication, and/or the completion of weldments or performing cutting operations in fabrication shop or factory environments or on large structures in difficult to access or elevated locations and methods of deploying and operating the system.
Claims21
A highly-mobile deployable multi-station collaborative robot fabrication system (fabrication system) for performing welding or cutting tasks in fabrication shop, in factory environments or on large structures in difficult to access or elevated locations, the fabrication system comprising:
- a mobile base having first and second adjacent workstations;
- a flash guard operatively connected to the mobile base intermediate the first and second workstations;
- at least one programmable collaborative robot system operatively connected to the mobile base;
- a material processing implement operatively connected to the at least one programmable collaborative robot system;
- a power supply operatively connected to the material processing implement;
- and
- a control system including a robot controller and a teach pendant having an application programming interface (API) display.
A method for producing precise structural components from raw work material using a collaborative robot fabricating system, the fabricating system including a collaborative robot having a robot arm, a power supply, at least two adjacent workstations, and a control system, the method comprising the steps of:
- a. either moving the work materials to be processed to the collaborative robot fabricating system or moving the collaborative robot fabricating system to the work materials to be processed;
- b. powering on the power supply and the collaborative robot;
- c. positioning the collaborative robot for the work materials to be processed on a first one of the at least two separate workstations;
- d. making a setup by aligning the work material to be fabricated in accordance with procedures associated with the fabrication to be processed;
- e. manually moving and positioning the robot arm to the work material to be processed on a first one of the at least two adjacent workstations;
- f. programming the collaborative robot program to perform a fabrication operation specified in the associated procedures;
- g. executing the program to perform the specified fabrication operation;
- h. positioning the collaborative robot for the work materials to be processed a second one of the at least two separate workstations;
- i. executing the program to perform the specified fabrication operation, and
- j. returning to the first one of the at least two separate workstations, removing the finished work materials, and making a new setup;
- and
- k. repeating the setup-processing-remove cycle at each of the at least two workstations until the particular fabrication job is completed.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.