Premier Automation Robotics

Heavy Payload Machine Tending Robot

Project Summary and Challenge

Premier Automation provided a Robotic CNC machine tending solution for a large machine shop specializing in the locomotive industry. This machine shop was expanding their operation with two new Vertical Turret Lathes (VTL’s) and wanted a robot to load, unload, and transfer parts between them. The goal was to improve the safety for operators handling the parts with cranes, especially when flipping the train wheel between machine 1 and machine 2.

Train wheels come to the customer as a raw forging with very rough dimensions. The machining process can remove upwards of 500lbs of material from a single wheel. The robot and tooling had to be sized to accommodate parts up to 1200lbs, and flexible enough to handle both the raw forging and finish machined parts without requiring a tool change.

Design Constraints:

Accurately locate parts of varying diameters and heights on an infeed table for the robot to pick
Provide adequate clearance between the CNC door opening and the robotic gripper
Robot tooling must be able to handle a diameter range from 24-48"

Solution

Premier designed a custom gripper for one of the largest robots Fanuc offers, an M2000iA/1200. The gripper utilized a Schunk Alpha 35 actuator with custom designed jaws and contact flanges. The tooling has multiple jaw spacing configurations to accommodate the part size range.

An operator can program new parts by entering specific dimensional information for the raw forged part and the finish machined part, and the system controller will calculate the appropriate pick and place positions for each stage of the process based on the size of the part being handled.

Results and Impact to Customer:

Premier Automation delivered a custom automated solution that meets the customer’s objectives of improved safety for operators when handling parts and improving the flexibility of the system to handle a wide range of wheel geometry.