Development of Robotic Tools for Chemical Coupler Assembly

Development of Robotic Tools for Chemical Coupler Assembly

In this paper, the design result of robotic tools and the development of robot control system for chemical coupler assembly are presented. This research aims to eliminate the risk of chemicals exposed to human operators by developing the robotic tools and robot automation system for chemical tank lorry unloading that were done manually. Due to tight tolerance between couplers, even small pose error may result in very large internal force. In order to resolve the problem, the 6-axis compliance device is employed, which can provide not only enough compliance between couplers but also F/T sensing. The 6-axis compliance device having large force and moment capacity is designed. A simple linear gripper with rack-and-pinion is designed to grasp two sizes of couplers. The proposed robot automation system consists of 6-DOF collaborative robot with offset wrist, 6-axis compliance device with F/T sensing, linear gripper, and two robot visions.