Identification of Industrial Robot Arm Work Cell Use Cases and a Test Bed to Promote Monitoring, Diagnostic, and Prognostic Technologies

Published

October 4, 2017

Author(s)

Brian A. Weiss, Alexander S. Klinger

Abstract

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is performing research to advance the state of the art in monitoring, diagnostic, and prognostic technologies to enhance decision-making at the factory floor to promote smarter maintenance and control strategies. A robot system is one focus of this research where the manufacturing community would benefit from measurement science (e.g., test methods, metrics, reference datasets) to design, deploy, verify, and validate PHM technologies aimed at a robot system work cell. This research is supported by the development of an industry-representative use case and will be further articulated through the generation of a physical test bed. As an industrial robot arm, by itself, is relatively robust, the overall robot system is more complicated and prone to greater uncertainty in its health degradation over time. A typical robot system work cell includes a robot(s), a robot controller(s), an end-effector(s), sensors, and other supporting automation that are integrated together to perform a specific task (e.g., welding, material handling). Over time, the individual components, and their respective relationships with one another, inside the work cell degrade, likely at different rates, which will impact critical metrics including productivity and quality. Faults and failures can be costly in terms of lost time and lost productivity making it beneficial for manufacturers to acquire advanced warning of if, when, and where a component (or relationship) will fail. NIST's identification of representative manufacturing robot work cell use cases will provide the foundation for which it will construct its own physical test bed. This paper will present various use case options that NIST has considered and highlight the ones that will be the foundation of the physical test bed. Additionally, the initial test bed design will be introduced.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of the Annual Conference Of The Prognostics And Health Management Society 2017

Conference Dates

October 2-5, 2017

Conference Location

St. Petersburg, FL, US

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

Local Download

Keywords

industrial robot systems, diagnostics, manufacturing processes, manufacturing systems, condition monitoring, prognostics, use cases, test bed

Citation

Weiss, B. and Klinger, A. (2017), Identification of Industrial Robot Arm Work Cell Use Cases and a Test Bed to Promote Monitoring, Diagnostic, and Prognostic Technologies, Proceedings of the Annual Conference Of The Prognostics And Health Management Society 2017, St. Petersburg, FL, US, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=923755 (Accessed April 26, 2024)