Product engineering for modularity and ease of use in multipurpose laser systems for electrification

The most important goals of industrial robotics have always been to maximize production and simplify man’s work; for these reasons, more and more companies have started developing robotic systems based on the concept of modular robotics. The flexible approach allows engineers to reduce loads, costs, and development time and, at the same time, satisfy a larger range of clients. This thesis deals with modularity in the vehicle electrification field, through the development analysis of a cartesian robot for battery laser welding. The project was carried out in collaboration with a Comau team, by designing a compact industrial product to be configured according to the client requests and delivered through standard transportation. The topics of Lithium batteries for EVs (electric vehicles), laser technology, welding process, and cartesian robots’ structure are studied to give a general overview. Then, the cartesian machine structure and the containing laser cell are described in detail, deepening the reasons behind the choice of components and the system functionalities. The Hy Weld product has been developed in two variants, each admitting five optional groups of elements to add for customizing the item. The electrical rack implementation and the network architecture design are showed and deeply analyzed. The machine is controlled by a Siemens SINUMERIK module which involves both the CNC and the PLC functions. The CN handle the axis movements while the PLC manages the I/O signals and performs all the tasks and functionalities not covered by the CNC programming, as the safety handling, and interactions with additional systems, like the vision control systems for the quality check, and the HMIs. The system environment has been implemented on two Siemens industrial software, TIA Portal and SinuTrain. The first used to define the hardware architecture and the PLC code structure, focusing on the main functional blocks, while the second simulates the CNC code. The results reached so far on this project are shown, and possible future implementations are discussed.