Revolutionizing Industrial production with the Archimedes Drive
Have you ever wondered how certain robots are transforming the products you use every day? From food, drinks, cars and medicines, robots are revolutionizing various industries. In today’s article, we’ll explore the most used types of robots in key industries and discuss ways to enhance their performance with the Archimedes Drive.
1 – Delta robots in Food and Beverage – A Game Changer for Packaging
Delta robots have been specifically designed for the food industry, revolutionising how packaging lines operate. Their design often includes features that enhance their suitability for food handling. For instance, the IP69K-rated stainless steel construction ensures they can withstand rigorous washdown processes, maintaining high hygiene standards.
Delta Robots Product Application:
Delta robots are ideal for handling lightweight food products that arrive irregularly on moving conveyors: chocolates, cookies, fruits, vegetables, and yoghurt. For example, some Delta robots can pack up to 150 chocolate bars per minute, quickly grabbing and placing products into boxes or other packaging.
Integrating the Archimedes Drive:
One of the limiting factors of Delta robots is the presence of the ‘high speed low accuracy, or high precision low accuracy’ dilemma. Delta robot manufacturers now have to choose between direct drive solutions when they need high accuracy and high speed, which compromises payload. Using speed reducers solves the payload issue, but results in backlash, lower efficiency and slower cycle times.
The Archimedes Drive offers direct drive solutions with its pros but without the cons. With up to 95% efficiency, >8000rpm input speed and zero backlash, the Archimedes Drive allows for improved speed, accuracy and precision, opening doors for high-speed, high-payload repetitive tasks in various industries, including complex machine and electronics assembly.
The Archimedes Drive, known for its efficient power transmission, enables smoother and faster movements in delta robots. This combination leads to improved speed, accuracy and precision, making these robots exceptionally suitable for high-speed, repetitive tasks in various industries, including food processing.
Example with Food packaging:
In the task of packaging sausages, a delta robot equipped with an Archimedes Drive can handle the products with remarkable speed and delicacy. The drive’s increased precision and stiffness allow the robot to manage the weight and variability of sausages without causing damage (as this product is delicate to manipulate). Each sausage is accurately placed into packaging trays, maintaining product integrity and presentation. This leads to a higher throughput and consistent packaging quality, optimising the production line’s efficiency and reliability.
Examples of Food Companies Using Delta Robots:
- Nestlé: Nestlé utilises Delta robots to enhance their packaging processes, as highlighted during events like the Big Bang Fair. Read more
- Ferrero: Known for their high-quality confectionery products, Ferrero employs Delta robots to maintain their stringent packaging standards.
- Unilever: Unilever benefits from Delta-style flex-picker robots from ABB to boost their packaging efficiency. Read more
- Dot’s Homestyle Pretzels: Delta robots have doubled the capacity for Dot’s Pretzels, showcasing the significant impact of robotic automation. Read more
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2 – SCARA Robots – the small-part assembly applications specialist
SCARA and electronic assemblies:
- Exceptional Repeatability and Accuracy: SCARA robots offer the precision necessary for the electronics industry, handling tiny and fragile parts with a gentle and precise arm. Some SCARAs can complete this standard move in less than 0.4 second with a repeatability of ±0.008 millimetres.
- Great Flexibility and Range of Motion: SCARA robots provide rigidity in the vertical direction and flexibility in the horizontal plane. The integration of vision and force control technologies enables these robots to support various tasks in the electronics industry, from assembly to inspection.
- Compact Size: Their small footprint means SCARA robots offer floor space savings and easier integration into existing workspaces.
- Fast ROI and Increased Throughput: Their efficiency and speed help to boost production rates, making them a cost-effective solution.
- Cleanroom Compatibility: Some electronic components, such as fibre optics, are extremely sensitive to dust, moisture, grease, or other particles and if exposed to such substances they can become compromised or damaged. Manufacturing such components with a clean room robot prevents any corrosion or damage from occurring.
Integrating the Archimedes Drive into SCARA Robots:
By incorporating the Archimedes Drive, SCARA robots can achieve higher speeds without compromising on the precision of their movements, making them ideal for high-speed, repetitive tasks.
Example with electronic assembly:
In the assembly of circuit boards, the precise placement of tiny components is critical. The enhanced precision and speed offered by the Archimedes Drive allow SCARA robots to place components accurately at much higher speeds, significantly increasing throughput. Additionally, the ability to handle delicate parts with greater accuracy, reducing the risk of causing damage resulting in high-quality assembly and reducing quality check rejections
Companies Using SCARA Robots:
- Xinshida: uses 30 six-axis robots and 2 SCARA to build the stamping welding production line of the outer floor of the air conditioner, which helps customers reduce the amount of work by 60%, greatly improve the flexibility of the production line, and achieve cost reduction and efficiency. Read more
- Schneider Electric: Staubli Robotics and Schneider Electric have signed an agreement to integrate customised Staubli TS series four-axis SCARA robots into Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Machine. Read more
- Delta Systems, Inc.: Delta Systems uses over 20 Epson SCARA robots for various operations, including pick-and-place and assembly tasks, demonstrating the versatility and efficiency of these robots in their production lines (Epson).
Supporting articles:
- What is SCARA Robot? Background and advantages
- Robot History
- SCARA Robots in the Electronics Industry
- The Application of SCARA Robots in the Electronics Industry
- ADTECH SCARA robot with vision system at Foxconn – YouTube Video
- How SCARA, Six-Axis, and Cartesian Pick-And-Place Robotics Optimize and Streamline Electronics Manufacturing Processes
3 – Articulated arm in an automobile: From Ford to the world
Standard Applications for Articulated Robots in Automobile:
Automobile assembly lines have applications that require a machine to twist and manipulate large and heavy products at odd angles. Those tasks are adapted to the capacities of robotic arms with their high payloads and long reach where they perform tasks that are otherwise difficult or impossible for other types of machinery. Specifically, the articulated arms with six-axis.
Integrating the Archimedes Drive in Articulated Arm Robots for Car Manufacturing:
Integrating articulated arm robots with an Archimedes Drive results in significantly enhanced performance due to the drive’s superior stiffness, and precision capabilities while securing an overtorque security with prolonging the drive lifetime.
Example in Car Manufacturing – Part Assembly
The enhanced precision of the Archimedes Drive ensures that each part is accurately placed and securely fastened, maintaining structural integrity and safety standards.
Example in Car Manufacturing – Chassis welding
The drive’s high stiffness and true zero backlash enable the robot to perform smooth and controlled movements, which are crucial for creating strong and clean welds. This results in higher-quality welds with fewer defects, leading to stronger car structures and reduced rework costs.
Example in Car Manufacturing – Painting:
The precision of the drive ensures that the paint is applied consistently, minimising overspray and waste. This results in a high-quality finish with a consistent appearance, enhancing the visual appeal of the vehicles.
Automobile Company using articulated arms:
- Toyota: Uses articulated robots extensively in their assembly lines for tasks such as welding, painting, and material handling. Read More
- General Motors: The Arlington plant, currently expanding from 4.3 million to 4.7 million square feet, produces about 1,200 vehicles daily. Each GM SUV has 4,000 welded points. Read More
- Ford: Ford is still talking up its revamped Chicago Assembly plant and has invested $1 billion into this year to push their number of robots to 600. The investment opened 500 new jobs and brought a bunch of new robots into the factory. The 600 robots are helping to build new vehicles at the Ford Chicago Assembly plant. Today, Ford has over 20,000 robots in operation globally. Read More.
- Telsa: Tesla’s ambitious new vehicle assembly process, known as “unboxing”, could significantly reduce production costs for its future models by up to 50%. This method reimagines traditional assembly lines, using parallel work areas to assemble components simultaneously, reducing complexity and effort. Read More.
Supporting articles:
4 – Use of Cobots robots in the pharmaceutical industry:
Collaborative robots, or cobots, are rapidly gaining traction in the pharmaceutical robotics market. They currently occupy around 30% of the market, with a growth rate of 14%, which surpasses the 9.8% CAGR of traditional robots.
Cobots are versatile in their applications, capable of performing tasks from dosing to marking to packaging, thereby ensuring the production of high-quality medicines.
- In pharmaceutical labs, cobots are employed to mix, count, dispense, and inspect medications. This automation optimises processes, reduces waste, and improves yield while maintaining stringent quality control to meet regulatory standards. By automating the labelling, filling, and capping of vials, pharmaceutical robots can address up to 80 per cent of a pharmacy’s medication dispensing requirements.
- While cobots are commonly used in large facilities, small labs and multi-labs also reap significant benefits from their deployment. Cobots can be easily programmed for various tasks, relocated with minimal effort, and quickly operational. They can even be mounted above workspaces to conserve valuable floor space for human operators and other equipment in compact laboratory environments.
By integrating cobots, the pharmaceutical industry enhances efficiency, accuracy, and flexibility, ensuring high-quality production and compliance with regulatory demands.
Integrating the Archimedes Drive in Cobot Robots:
The Archimedes Drive inner gear free mechanism enables smoother and faster movements in Cobot robots while being perfectly safe by being backdrivable. This combination leads to higher precision and improved accuracy, making these robots exceptionally suitable for delicate and repetitive tasks in controlled environments, such as clean rooms in the pharmaceutical industry.
Example in Cleanroom Operations: Sealing Vials
With the Archimedes Drive, robots can manage the sealing process with consistent force, ensuring each vial is securely and properly sealed without compromising the sterile environment. This leads to a higher throughput and consistent sealing quality, optimising the production line’s efficiency and reliability
Example in Cleanroom Operations: Inspection
The precision of the Archimedes Drive ensures that the inspection process is accurate and consistent. This leads to a higher level of quality control, ensuring that only vials meeting stringent standards proceed to the next stage of production.
Examples of companies using cobots:
- MARKA: an Italian chemical company, a UR3 Cobot helps to maintain performance and quality levels. This means that cleaning agents can be produced in smaller batches. The robot arm continuously and precisely places caps on bottles and then tightens them. Read more.
- Sanofi: one of the world’s leading vaccine manufacturers has implemented an OMRON palletising solution with robotics to enhance efficiency and relieve workers from strenuous tasks. Read More.
- Johnson & Johnson is using cobots to do packaging tasks. Watch video.
- AstraZeneca: developed NiCoLA-B a cobot drug discovery robot. The robot, which can test up to 300,000 compounds a day, is designed to make drug discovery smarter, faster and cheaper. Read More.
Supporting articles:
