Applications
Connectivity in the changing robot industry SOURCE: KUKA
Changes in the robotic industry, especially trends toward connectivity, miniaturization and Industry 4.0, led to a partnership between HARTING and Kuka. Responding to these megatrends put the focus on detailed application knowledge, a common view of holistic customer benefits and concrete new product solutions. QUALITY, COMPETENCE AND TRUST FORM the foundations and guarantee for a good partnership. With this in place, convincing performance and high standards can be achieved. With the willingness and know-how to innovate, companies can always master new challenges, weather competition and shape the future.
Digital transformation
More than ever before, today's world is characterised by digitalisation both in the consumer and industrial sectors. With a look to industry, it is clear that this cannot happen without cooperation and partnerships. Specialists with a wide range of competencies and skills are needed everywhere to offer suitable holistic solutions. This is already clearly demonstrated by the large number of platforms and exchange formats that exist for IoT and IIoT systems today. This understanding of the bundling of competencies and requirements has shaped the cooperation between KUKA and HARTING from a very early stage. Some examples from this partnership show the path from the jointly developed specific solution through to the resulting standard. Since embarking on cooperation more than 20 years ago, HARTING and KUKA have always created new solutions with a view to market requirements. One example is the constantly increasing EMC requirements which led to special EMC housing designs for connectors, and which have meanwhile become a standard today. Also in the field of robotics production, it is essential to reduce the installed number of parts so as to keep complexity low and reduce the number of production steps. Here, the two companies worked together and joined forces and took a look at the processes and created a specific component, the so-called multifunctional housing, which optimally combines the connector function and IP67 sealed electronics housing. This approach is now being offered as a system solutions in various application areas: whether data cabling in the controller, power cabling to the robot itself or solutions which take mechanical requirements into account, such as specific transition elements for a PROFINET infrastructure on axis 3. 11. 2020
Han-Yellock connector system on KR AGILUS robot system from KUKA.
Miniaturization trend
In recent years, a major trend for the robotics industry has been an increasing need trend twoard miniaturization. The KR AGILUS robot system, for example, is a new line of compact robotic systems which are specifically designed for use in increasingly flexible production environments. The requirement for plug-in connections requires fast and intuitive handling, in which the design aspect also plays an important role at the same time. With Han-Yellock, a new innovative connector system featuring completely new locking technology, a technology solution was found for this new robot series. Finally, the intensification of cooperation was particularly evident in the extension of the technologies and solutions to all the
i n d u str i a l e th e r n e t b o o k
so-called "lifelines" of an application. In addition to the normal connectivity such as plug connections at the robot base or data interfaces at the transfer points, both upward integrations such as system solutions and products such as switches were used. Here the demand for flexibility and adaptability to the communication systems used by the customer in automation was relevant. Quality switches became the central communication element, as they were able to process various automation systems in a very open manner. Thanks to this consistency of the powerdata-signal infrastructure on the robot, system designers were able to achieve a holistic approach to three infrastructure elements: customer-oriented, application-neutral and flexible.
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