Integration of an industrial robot and a CNC machine in waterjet cutting application.

Sammanfattning: The main goal of this work is to create a flexible manufacturing system for the waterjet cutting application. This kind of process is a high-risk activity with possible injuries if details are removed manually. To avoid this problem, a system can be fully automatized excluding presence of human interaction. Moreover, it could possibly decrease the total operating time for waterjet cutting of multiple details from one sheet of material, by removing details automatically from the waterjet cutting machine. This aim was achieved by establishing a flexible manufacturing system, which ensures coordination of a robot and a waterjet machine during the process. The developed system combines a computer numerically controlled waterjet machine and the ABB IRB 2600 Robot; both supervised by the Siemens SINUMERIK 840D sl. A full cooperation strategy was designed and implemented i.e. a control algorithm, a communication using an industrial network and safety issues. The experiments were executed, where validating the quality of the designed system for different scenarios including a real scenario from the industry. The project was done in Swedish Waterjet Lab in cooperation with KMT Robotic Solutions and Water Jet Sweden AB.