Cobot Manufactures Fujitsu Mainboards

In a new Cobot project between Fujitsu and Kuka, a sensitive Kuka robot works hand-in-hand with the line worker at Fujitsu's Augsburg plant.

The robot-controlled process automation improves the production of highly sensitive motherboards and results in an industry 4.0 solution that enables high-precision handling and testing of motherboards. The robots are instructed by a human worker by manually guiding the robot arm, whereby the robot memorizes each step by machine learning.

The close cooperation between humans and robots opens up new possibilities for the production and testing of motherboards at Fujitsu's Augsburg plant. Robots support the workers in this trend-setting cooperation by working safely side by side with them on assembly lines. Industrial robots are already established in various automation tasks. As part of this promising implementation, cooperation between humans and robots involves the handling of highly sensitive electronic components. This type of task has not yet been treated as a possible part of robot automation. To make the approach more readily available to other manufacturing companies, Fujitsu and Kuka have developed a robot-based process automation solution that enables high-precision motherboard handling and testing.

In production at Fujitsu, robots work with human colleagues instead of confining themselves to separate, fenced areas. Robots can detect when humans are nearby and slow down their movements to ensure that there is no risk of injury to their human colleagues. The cooperation begins with a worker teaching the robot the necessary assembly steps by manually guiding the robot arm. These steps are then stored in the capabilities of the robot by machine learning - without additional programming. Once trained, robots can work behind virtual safety barriers and switch to high-speed mode to perform monotonous and repetitive tasks once people have left the safety zone.

To realize this visionary project, Kuka and Fujitsu engineers have combined their industry 4.0 know-how and process expertise. Following a successful pilot project, one of Kuka's lightweight robots was fully integrated into Fujitsu's motherboard production line at the end of January 2018 to improve manufacturing efficiency, accuracy, and quality. A second robot will be added in summer 2018. Both companies plan to add additional functions such as data analysis to explore the potential of human-robot collaboration in areas such as predictive maintenance and quality control and new possibilities for usage-based billing models.