A magazine assignment heuristic for robotic assembly using the dynamic pick-and-place approach

Abstract

Robotic assembly cells consist principally of an assembly table: a supply magazine, and a Cartesian robot where the robot picks up assigned components from the magazine and places them in prearranged locations on the assembly table. The major concern in industry is to optimize robot traveling time so that a shorter assembly cycle time can be achieved. Three factors directly affecting assembly efficiency are: (1) robot motion control, (2) the sequence for placing the individual component on the assembly board, and (3) the corresponding magazine slot location from which the components must be selected. This paper proposes a magazine assignment heuristic coupled with dynamic pick-and-place (DPP) robot motion control to improve assembly efficiency. Simulation results indicate that our magazine assignment heuristic, with DPP robot motion control, always surpasses the same magazine assignment heuristic applied to the traditional fixed pick-and-place (FPP) robot motion control.