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Aims to research the possibilities of using piezoelectric technology to improve accuracy and other characteristics of parallel servo grippers.

The paper presents in detail two different kinds of developed two‐fingered servo grippers based on piezoelectric technology with parallel moving mechanics. The first gripper is based on standing wave ultrasonic motors. The other gripper is a traditional gripper, the characteristics of which have been improved with integrated piezoelectric stack actuators. Both servo grippers have been tested and the test results and experiences are introduced in the paper.

It is possible to improve the accuracy and characteristics of a parallel servo gripper with piezoelectric technology.

In the future it is necessary to concentrate on the mechanical design of gripper bodies and the fingers. Grasping force feedback signal should be even more linear and noiseless.

Piezoelectric stack actuator's limited displacement is a problem in many practical applications when elastic or rough surface parts are handled. When integrated piezoelectric stacks are used with servo grippers, it is very important to focus on gripper's mechanical design and especially on the mechanical rigidity for getting the best possible results.

Further developed versions of these servo grippers can be used in high accuracy industry applications instead of traditional servo gripper technologies.

This paper aims to describe the advances made by a particular pharmaceutical packaging machinery manufacturer for dealing with short product runs.

The company and its blister packaging machinery products are described, with special attention to the modular servo‐driven range. The centralised control console and the capabilities of its software are reviewed. A collaborative investigation of a late‐stage customisation approach is reported.

Small lot‐size is an acute problem in Europe because of the variations in language, carton format and dimensions, and can make set‐up time dominate running time. Functional separation within the machinery and central set‐up control ameliorate this problem, and the use of a logistical storage unit greatly improves overall through‐put.

When lot sizes are small, the productivity of a manufacturing line is decided not by the maximum production rate of each machine, but by the logistics of job scheduling.

Presents practical developments that improve productivity in pharmaceutical packaging.

This paper seeks to analyse the internal materials flow in lean manufacturing in an assembly line of the Bosch factory, located in Spain. The objective is to develop a handling system in a small space, capable of solving the problems of accumulated intermediate stocks of parts. An improvement is proposed adopting the milkrun handling system, while verifying the advances by means of lean metrics.

Based on this case study, the paper identifies data from value stream mapping and uses lean metrics, such as dock‐to‐dock time and lean rate. The case study develops a timetable and routing analysis for the milkrun to improve materials flow.

The proposed logistics allows an improvement of lean metrics, without modifying the layout and production planning. The routing flexibility of the milkrun reduced stocks, work‐in‐process and dock‐to‐dock time, while increasing lean rate.

The findings are limited due to the focused nature of the case study. Although the solution is designed for a particular plant, the methodology is fully exportable.

The paper shows a real case study illustrative for systems management. This research shows significant benefit associated with the implementation of lean programs.

It details how the application of lean manufacturing tools could necessitate a study of materials handling to improve lean metrics.

Currently, adhesive films are replacing glue in many applications in semiconductor packaging and microelectronic assembly. When adhesive films are used to mount components on a PCB, the success of the automatic joining operation depends on many different things. Manufacturers of adhesives use three main values when they are discussing processing parameters in their data sheets. The paper describes in detail the concept of the developed assembly environment for making test joints of miniature and MEMS components using adhesive films.

This paper presents an algorithm for the generation of mechanical assembly sequences.

The algorithm employs an adjacency matrix, and uses three different mathematical patterns of subassemblies to generate automatically all geometrical feasible assembly sequences.

This algorithm cannot only generate automatically all geometrical feasible assembly sequences but also reduce the number of sequences.

Assembly modeling is more completed than that of previous research; the method is able to automatically generate all possible assembly sequences and be implemented easily with program; and this paper makes use of exact mathematical equations describing every subgroup of the three‐subassembly patterns.

This paper aims to introduce novel linear synchronous motor (LSM) driven assembly automation and material handling system designs with examples.

Discusses novel LSM technology principles with some practical system design and configuration examples for automated assembly and material handling. The high energy density and rugged design offers high duty cycle, high power, rapid acceleration, improved speed, high positioning repeatability, and increased performance for demanding installations.

LSMs can increase throughput, reliability and payload information feedback. They can also decrease maintenance requirements, and the total cost of installation. MagneMotion's patented QuickStick system propels and controls each vehicle independently by interacting with a permanent magnet array mounted to each vehicle. As a consequence, the vehicles do not require communication or power cables, allowing a broad range of flexible, reconfigurable configurations and move profiles.

LSMs can increase throughput, reliability and payload information feedback. They can also decrease maintenance requirements, and the total cost of installation.

Discusses novel LSM technology principles with some practical system design and configuration examples for automated assembly and material handling.

The main objective of this paper is to report the development of an indirect force control strategy designed to operate with industrial robotic deburring applications. More specifically, the system reported here is developed to debur high‐quality knives that incorporate innovative design from well‐known authors (fashion designers). Therefore, these products are very difficult to manufacture and have quality requirements incompatible with human‐based deburring, since humans introduce too many unacceptable deviations as a consequence of their incapacity to maintain concentration for long periods of time.

Since a good model of the environment is difficult to obtain, namely on industrial applications, a simple strategy was designed to obtain the relevant parameters leading to an acceptable performance. Consequently, the system implements an indirect force control strategy as a way to use actual robot controllers, explore the computing power of external personal computers, and the advanced features of modern force‐torque sensors. The proposed strategy is presented in some detail and further discussed using a few test‐case experiments.

Experiments show a usable setup for contour following which is very useful to obtain the work‐piece profile. A good selection of the path step seems to be, as expected, one of the most important variables to achieve good results: the smaller the increment over the trajectory the more regular is the resulting force profile. Low speeds also seem to lead to better results. The strategy implemented to maintain contact with the object and keep contact force at a certain level seems to result over surfaces with a smooth and large radius continuity, although there are significant force variations on impact with objects (which is not important since impacts can be planned), especially at the higher speeds, and even more significant near object edges. The desired contact force is also a parameter that should be tested. In the presented experiments, a contact force of 10 N was selected and oscillations of 1 N were observed around this value. In an industrial environment, more exposed to noise and vibrations, a higher contact force may be required. On the other hand, the increase of the contact force also increases the flexion of the sensing tool what brings more uncertainty to the calculated contact point. Large force oscillations imply more uncertainty of the obtained work‐piece contour. Like in any industrial process selected parameters are the ones that show acceptable results at higher execution speeds.

The objective of the presented setup is to find the better compromise for a particular industrial application, achieving acceptable operational cycle times.

The obtained results are encouraging and the ability to perform contour recognition under a specified contact force can be very useful with the automatic deburring system being developed. In fact, this feature enables the system to acquire the exact contour of the working piece in the exact same conditions that will be used for the subsequent deburring task. This will contribute to minimize error and increase the process speed.

This paper aims to study a commercially available industrial part feeder that uses an industrial robot arm and computer vision system. Three conveyor belts are arranged to singulate and circulate parts, bringing them under a camera where their pose is recognized and subsequently manipulated by the robot arm. The problem is addressed of optimizing belt speeds and hence throughput of this feeder that avoid: starvation, where no parts are visible to the camera and saturation, where too many parts prevent part pose detection or grasping.

Models are developed for intermittent and continuous motion feeding based on a 2D Poisson process. Renewal theory is applied to model intermittent motion and an M/G/1 queue with customer impatience to model continuous motion feeding. These models are verified using discrete event simulation.

The models predict and optimize feeder behaviour very accurately and it is possible to compute optimal settings for different part sizes and throughput sensitivity.

Feeder belt velocities are currently estimated based on intuition and ad hoc trial and error. The results provide a scientific alternative. The models are straightforward to implement and can provide velocity settings for feeders in industrial use.

This paper advances the scientific understanding of automation and part feeding.

Ethernet continues to evolve as a viable fieldbus technology for industrial automation. This paper seeks to discuss the development of the Common Industrial Protocol (CIP) for Ethernet and standards with particular reference to time synchronisation, real time motion control and safety.

The CIP is introduced, with an overview of four network adaptations: CompoNet, DeviceNet, ControlNet, and EtherNet/IP. Developments in the EtherNet/IP implementation are discussed, along with key features. These include CIP Safety to meet the requirements for safety‐related control, CIP Sync for time synchronisation across CIP networks and CIP motion for real‐time closed loop motion control.

Standard, unmodified Ethernet will support time synchronisation, real time motion control and safety‐related applications with the CIP adaptation EtherNet/IP. The CIP enables complete integration of control with information, multiple CIP networks and internet technologies. CIP provides seamless communication from the plant floor throughout the enterprise, with a scalable and coherent architecture, incorporating functionality, such as safety, time synchronisation and motion control, hitherto only available with specialised or incompatible networks.

The implementations of CIP Sync, CIP Motion and CIP Safety and the corresponding standards provide functionality and flexibility not available from disparate specialist networks. The ability to fully integrate internet technologies and safety, synchronisation, motion and safety together is a distinguishing feature. Industrial Ethernet technologies vary in the ability to integrate to the same level of functionality and offer similar flexibility.

The development of CIP technology and the use of open standards are described. The opportunity to use the combination of an established automation protocol and standard, unmodified Ethernet provides potential cost benefits, flexibility, and innovative solutions, whilst providing integration, performance and cost advantages.