Robot-Cell Mirroring
Similarly to ‘robot-cell cloning’, ‘robot-cell mirroring’ offers the ability to copy robot programs from one initial robot-cell to another one – mirrored this time. A typical application is for automotive manufacturing, where the manufacturing of the right side of the car is ‘mirrored’ relative to the left side. Here also robot-cell calibration should be performed to eliminate any built differences between the initial robot-cell and its mirrored counterpart.
Robot Swapping
In some cases, robots along a production line might need to be replaced with other robot models. This could be due to the wear and tear of the original robots, or because newer technology within the plant requires newer robot controllers (and therefore newer robot models), or because the robot’s production tasks are to be expanded (requiring a larger robot envelope). In some cases, the robot user might even want to switch to a different robot brand altogether (for various reasons). The robot user needs of course to verify that the new robot model will be able to handle the existing task, in terms of reachability and collision avoidance.
In this case, the issue is not just to address the built differences between the initial robot and the replacement one as described so far, but it is also most likely to replace the actual language syntax used within both sets of robot programs (sometimes from one robot brand to another), to possibly handle a diametrically opposite end-effector mounting, to deal with a probably totally different robot base location (not by just a few millimeters), etc.
The DynaCal™ system (see “Absolute Accuracy Robot-Cell Calibration”) should be used in all of the above cases to calibrate both:
(1) The initial robot-cell.
(2) The robot-cell to clone to, to mirror, to swap to, etc.
The DynaCal system doesn’t just offer ‘basic’ calibration functions indeed (measurement, identification, compensation), but it also allows such functions to be conveniently executed within the context of the specific operation you are interested in, as previously described – whether it is Off-Line Programming (see “Off-Line Programming with No Touchup”), robot-cell Cloning, robot-cell Mirroring, robot Swapping, etc. as described above.
Robot Swapping
