A central building block of automation is the industrial robot, which undertakes the handling of workpieces with a workpiece-specific gripper system. The robots are selected on the basis of handling weight and range. FMB uses robots from leading manufacturers YASKAWA and FANUC.
For handling weights of up to 12 kg and ranges of up to 1440 mm the automation can be constructed as a moveable compact cell (unirobot system). If the handling weights and ranges are in excess of this, the robot, together with all the system components must be housed in a safety fence (unirobot pro system) and fixed to the floor.
The workpieces can be aligned and transported to and from our automation cells in workpiece carriers, on trolleys, on conveyor belts, on carousel storages or in chutes. It is also possible to feed bulk materials by using vibratory conveyors, step feeders or camera techniques.
The gripper systems fitted to the robots are differentiated by the number of grip points and the type of gripper. Our automation systems are configured so that the weight of the gripper system with clamped workpiece does not exceed the handling weight of the robot.
Gripper systems with a single grip point are called simple gripper systems, and can only hold one workpiece. If more grip points are needed, double or multiple gripper systems are used. With a double gripper system, the finished parts can be removed from the clamping systems of the machine tool and the blank inserted, in a working cycle.
The gripper systems can be fitted with parallel grippers, three-jaw grippers, vacuum grippers, magnetic grippers, or custom types.
Our standard cells are built on in front of the loading gates of the production machine or to the side of a loading hatch.
Possible individual solutions include overhead installation above the production machine (FMB unirobot PORTAL system), where the robot is mounted on a track above the machine.