Flexible Automatic Discrete Parts Assembly
Abstract
There is great emphasis today on the development of fully integrated manufacturing, including both the automation of individual manufacturing operations and the integration of all phases of manufacturing, from design through planning through production. The associated problems, however, are extremely complex and will require a large research effort over and extended period of time. This project is focused on an important category of flexible automation problems, in itself quite large, for which there are yet very few operational systems, flexible automated assembly. Assembly is the most highly labor intensive manufacturing process in the production of durable goods. There is thus great potential for direct cost saving through the development of flexible automated systems for assembly, as well as the indirect benefits mentioned above. The long term goal of this work is to develop technologies that can be applied to many different aspects of assembly automation and that can be evolved to successively higher levels of abstraction, i.e., that will eventually allow high level commands, such as assembly product X, to be given. We are addressing three aspects of the problem, vision, planning/programming, and system integration. This report describes the first year's effort on this project toward these goals.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA217401
Entities
People
- D. E. Atkins
- R. A. Volz
Organizations
- University of Michigan