APPLICATION
MODULES
.
Permitted disclosures are representative of other application specific solutions,
we have developed.
. Industrial Robot programming products have been acquired by Adept Technology [Press
Release].
.
Representative Contracts from United States Government : YouTube
Video (10:00 min).
ACG and IBM jointly developed the laser guided robotic
loading system to load disk drive platters onto Ulvac
sputtering machines. IBM required the system to be agile:
changeover was to be completed in minutes. The software
was originally written for the 65 mm disks. It used to take a day to
effect changeovers to 95 mm disks or 34mm disks. Now it is
accomplished in less than one hour. A simulation environment with
dynamic motion planning and automatic program generation
accelerated robust code development. [
More]
Abbott Laboratories contracted with ACG to develop
software for a vision based programmable part feeder. Vision
based tracking software enables the robot to rapidly acquire
the part from a moving conveyor. Vision was also used for
dimension inspection. The vision software was tightly
integrated with motion servo control to attain high speed
tracking. Software for the rapid eye-hand coordination was
first tested extensively in a custom offline simulation
environment. [
Similar Project]
Adept Technology purchased an offline programming
environment from ACG. It has been integrated with tools to
enable rapid prototyping of code that manages the control and
coordination of multiple devices: robots, feeders, vision
systems. The programming environment includes off line
and on line components to talk to virtual or real robots. [
Press
Release]
Babcock and Wilcox contracted with ACG to develop
software that coordinates motion between a robot and a servo
positioning system by automatically generating the
interpolated points needed by the linear track and the robot
mounted on it to stay "in synch". A interpolation
engine was developed and tested in simulation before
deployment. [More]
Hutchinson Technology required the control software
for a 6 robot distributed control system to written and tested
while the machine was built. The machine was
being built at Hutchinson at the same time that code was being
written for it. Since ACG could not have accurate data on the
mechanical behavior of the system, the software was developed
to run virtual robots in a simulation system built
specifically for the customer. The simulation system
subsequently became the supervisory controller for the
"real" robots. The entire system was simulated,
tested and deployed in 90 days. [Related
Technology]
Schlage Lock Co. is polishing door handle levers and
knobs with prototyping software developed by ACG. A custom
rapid programming module and simulation system was developed
to rapidly generate robot trajectory point and test the motion
through robot animation sequences. Teaching a
new door handle profile is now
accomplished in one hour with this automated programming
system. It used
to take weeks. [More]
Warner Robins AFB. An autonomous robotic system is
stripping paint off and performing Non Destructive Inspection
on the skin of F-18 Fighter aircraft. The U.S. Air Force required a control system to rapidly teach complex trajectories required of a robot, equipped with paint stripping blast nozzle, when stripping paint off F-18 fighter aircraft. The control software
allows the operator to dynamically modify process parameters such as strip rate.
Automated generation of the trajectories of motion significantly reduces the time and costs associated with robot programming.
ACG developed a simulation and path planning algorithm to
drive robot motion directly from a CAD model of the aircraft.
However, the aircraft skin geometry deviates from the CAD models
requiring sensor driven real time path modification.
[More]