US-West Germany Cooperative Research On Automating Robotic Assembly Workplace Planning

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This award supports Professors Richard L. Francis and Sencer Yeralan of the University of Florida for collaborative research in industrial engineering with Professor Horst W. Hamacher of the Department of Mathematics, University of Kaiserslautern, Federal Republic of Germany. The objective of their collaboration is to develop algorithms and software to help implement the automation of robotic assembly workplace planning. Professors Francis and Yeralan will be involved with the engineering aspects of the project, including some computer modeling and PC graphics, contacts with industry, expertise on robots and some theoretical analysis. Professor Hamacher will be involved with combinatorial mathematical modeling of the robotic operations and related computer implementation of algorithms. In electronic manufacturing, many kinds of printed circuit boards have parts to be inserted by a robot, and the insertions can be made in any sequence. Likewise, one is free to choose locations of bins or feeders to contain the parts. The choice of assembly sequence and the location of the bins can greatly affect the total assembly time and thus the manufacturing productivity. Using ideas in combinatorics and location theory, these investigators will develop algorithms to determine a best assembly sequence and best bin locations. The algorithms will be implemented with software operable on a PC. The collaborators will also examine related problems where set-up times are dominant, and problems involving the distribution of parts to bins. The results are expected to be applicable in a variety of manufacturing contexts involving robots.