Fanuc Robotics America Inc. ran several work cells with its articulating-arm robots at the recent Assembly Technology Expo in Rosemont, including:
* Four robots tag-teamed to demonstrate what Fanuc calls ``intelligent assembly.'' A new F-100iA programmable positioning robot picked up a tray of metal cranks and connecting rods from a storage rack and presented it to another robot, an LR Mate 200iC/5L, equipped with an FS-10iA force sensor. A second F-100iA presented an assembly fixture to the LR Mate 200iC/5L, which then used the force sensor to assemble the components, and finally, a second F-100iA transfered the completed assembly to a rack.
* An M-710iC robot equipped with iRVision three-dimensional laser vision sensor and force sending. Showgoers tried to insert a part into an off-angle hole with a keyed shaft, a difficult task. The robot then performed the same operation, because it could ``see'' the random location of a part using Fanuc 3-D vision and also ``feel'' how to insert the part with the FS-60 force sensor.
* Fanuc demonstrated high-speed parts picking with its M-430iA/2F high-speed robot with iRVision, which was recently named Robot of the Year for 2007 by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
* An LR Mate 200ic/5H with iRVision identified randomly placed cosmetic items and transferred them into kits at high speeds.
Fanuc Robotics is based in Rochester Hills, Mich.