8/8/2019 MQP Poster Ronnie

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Robot Part LoadingTeam: Tom Cunningham & Ronnie Kupfer

Advisor: Professor RongSponsored by: Michael Mastergeorge and Thomas

Mitchell of General Electric

Introduction

Currently, General Electric aircraft engine vanes, similar to and including those shown below, are sanded down to product specificationsmanually.

Solution

The vanes are locked in a holder, unique to each type of vane.

They are then brought to a rotary sander and sand ed down at the correct angle which is controlled by the holder the vane is in.

This step in the vane produ ction process is only for the angled end of thevane which can be seen as the ³V´ shape end in the vanes in the picture.

The vanes are then visually in spected on a random bases to ensure they arewithin tolerances.

Problem Statement

Design a process that will automate the sanding of the vanes down to product specifications by any means.*

*Leave open the ability to integrate a vi sion system into the process in thefuture for inspection and also for automated selection of vain types wi thlittle human intervention.

Possible Solutions

A mechanism which uses the current holders to control the sandingspecifications.

A robotic arm which uses the current holders to control the sandingspecifications.

A robotic arm which does not use the current holders to control the sandin gspecs. Instead, finger-like gripper holds the vanes.

Based on the versatility of a roboti c arm and the desire to leave the processflexible for future changes and additions, a robotic arm solution became theoptimal choice.

The Robot Operation

1. The robot picks up the vaneout of a tray.

2. The robot moves to thesander.

3. Robot approaches the sander withthe vane.

4. The gripper rotates to orient thevane at the proper angle.

4. Robot passes across thesander, bringing one side intospecifications.

5. Robot passes back across thesander, after rotating, and sands theother side down to specifications.

After these steps are performed, the robot will drop the vanes i nto a container for future inspection. For future improvements, a camera-vision system could be incorporated to inspect every vane automatically. It could then repeat theoperation if the vane still had the ability to come into tolerance or reject i t entirely and place it in a reject container.

After evaluating the different types of robots, it was decided that a six-degree of freedom robot would work well based on the requirements for the task. A gripper,tray, and program have been designed for use with the PUMA robot located in theRobotics Lab at WPI. No holder will be needed with this design.

The PUMA, seen to the right, is a six-degree of freedom robot and is able to perform the motions necessary to sand the vanes. It uses electric servomotors tocontrol its movement but has pneumatic control over the end effector. The end effector can be changed by activating the on e of the two solenoids controlling the pneumatic functions of the robot. The other solenoid controls the closing functionof a finger gripper end effector. This ability to close a gripper on the vanes iscrucial to the success of this project.

Tray Design

The tray, seen below-left, is designed for two important aspects of the process:1. To hold the vanes in a way such that the robot can easily pick them up.2. To give the robot a location in space with respect to the vane.

The latter was the most difficult part of making the process work. The reason is three-fold. First, only the length of a finished vane is known. Second, only up to afew-hundredths of an inch of material needs to be removed. Third, the tolerancesare tight enough that the best precision possible in every step has been taken intoaccount.

Special Thanks To:

Jim Johnston

&

Tri-Star Plastics

Gripper Design

Currently the gripper is designed to allow inserts to easily be swapped in th e end effector to match more closely the vanetype the robot will be picking up and sanding. The gripper design can be seenbelow-right.