In recent years,smart factories have become more and more resilient,and the transmission machinery has been unable to locate and configure from the beginning of the planning of the new factory.On the other hand,AGV has benefited from the continuous innovation of mechanical vision,optical map guidance and other technologies,and gradually introduced the trend of trackless autonomous movement from the logistics industry to the factory,forming AMR.It is even expected to create a prototype of”super automation”of multi-machine cooperation,and develop a foot robot to cross the last mile.
Based on the current wave of global supply chain restructuring or more fragmentation,the manufacturing industry that has returned from all over the world will face the difficulties of labor shortage and land shortage at the same time,and it will be difficult to replicate the production mode such as mass production in the past to reduce costs.In addition to the fact that factory logistics has always been a key link in the production and manufacturing process,the transmission machinery of the new generation of smart factories must also be more responsive to the demand for flexible configuration.
It is even required that the autonomous mobile robot must design the moving line at the same time with the environment,and must first simulate the operation through digital twins to achieve maximum efficiency.Automated Guided Vehicle(AGV)with integrated sensing,computing and other software and hardware technologies has become the key system for manufacturing and logistics enterprises to build intelligent fields.Therefore,the rapid growth of the AGV market is expected to play an important role in the”Category III”field of pursuing net zero carbon emissions in the future.
Optimize warehouse management and supply chain with artificial intelligence
Including today’s warehouse logistics robot system,it requires that the cargo flow architecture and robot behavior be considered and designed at the same time,breaking the traditional conveyor belt assembly line mode.In the past,Amazon’s Kiva robot took the lead in adopting the concept of moving shelves and finding people by things.In recent years,Hanrhe Technology has also launched a new”Shuttle car automatic storage”high-density access system to tailor the most appropriate solution for customers.
The system is not only upgraded from the previous generation of”shuttle type material box type automatic storage”two-way walking shuttle car to four-way walking,but also equipped with a lifting mechanism to carry out vertical transportation and take out goods by clamping.According to the efficiency requirements,the intelligent scheduling system can independently schedule and flexibly configure the number of shuttle cars according to the current task instructions and operation status to optimize the overall task operation and maximize the overall efficiency.
In recent years,AXON,a supplier that has provided special modification equipment services for stackers for a long time,has also launched”AMR autonomous mobile stacker”in combination with big data and artificial intelligence technology.It uses SLAM algorithm to complete unmanned transportation,without laying additional reference lines,which can achieve an accuracy rate of±1cm;In the process of unmanned handling,the existing automatic production,material system and production system of the plant can be connected in series through the system to help realize the intelligent goal.
AGV combines intelligent control to improve the flexibility and capacity of the handling system
Han Mengru,manager of the Institute of Machinery of the Industrial Research Institute,pointed out that today all materials handling goods can be divided into:raw materials,semi-finished products,costs,etc.In the past,manual picking and distribution,handling and loading and unloading were required.Until the last 3-5 years,the AGV automatic transportation system was introduced.The relevant technologies include:automatic distribution of multi-vehicle materials,trackless control and guidance,automatic handling/loading and unloading and other technologies.
The intelligent functions of HI have been effectively integrated by the Institute of Industry and Research,including:highly flexible intelligent traffic management,cross-system integration,and customized interfaces.Through the MCS in the intelligent material handling system architecture,coordinate and manage the handling orders issued by MES after receiving orders;Then the ACS developed by the Industrial Research Institute will select,manage and control the appropriate AGV/AMR of different brands or guidance types,and implement the functions of route planning and multi-vehicle traffic management;Finally,AGV/AMR will follow this route to complete the loading and unloading operation.
Because PLCs on AGV or other devices are equipped with ROS 2(Robot Operating System)open source platform,they can be replaced or added or decreased at any time to expand and have more flexibility;Then plan the path,speed,parking time and other different tasks of multiple vehicles as a whole without readjustment,so as to avoid traffic jam and collision,and effectively improve the efficiency and productivity of handling materials and workpieces of the production line.
At present,the Institute of Industry and Research has also introduced this multi-machine vehicle dispatching and delivery system into the 24/7 precision manufacturing line of the silicon products company,a large semiconductor packaging and testing factory,to control more than 10 autonomous mobile robots(AMR),so as to upgrade the intelligent transportation to serve hundreds of production equipment,improve the production capacity,and shape the intelligent manufacturing transformation ecosystem.Up to now,it has saved about 15%of the transportation manpower,99.9%of the AMR adequacy rate,and more than 95%of the crop mobility rate,with significant benefits.
Adapt to the needs of intelligent sensing and shorten the AGV development schedule
In addition,different from the early AGV system,the positioning and guidance path mode through magnetic track,color band or Bar-code is accurate,fast but inelastic,and it is difficult to keep up with the variable adjustment of application field in recent years.In recent years,with the integration of new technologies such as 3D LiDAR sensor,simultaneous localization and mapping(SLAM),AGV has become more flexible and fast,and the application tentacles have been extended from e-commerce logistics to manufacturing.If the cost and efficiency are to reach the sweet point acceptable to the industry,the sensor will be the key!
Because the intelligence of AGV will mainly come from the integration of software and hardware,relevant equipment manufacturers and system integration manufacturers should pay attention to the integration ability and relevant technical service support of the manufacturer in addition to the product specification and price when selecting sensors,which will have a huge impact on the development schedule and availability of products to meet the needs of customers in different fields.It is suggested that the equipment and system operators must find partners who can provide complete technical support to complete the development quickly and ensure the practicability of AGV when they put into development.
In the 2022 CES exhibition,Hyundai Motor also put forward the”Metamobility Concept”with robot technology as the core,combined with AMR and the”Expanding Human Reach”vision of extending human mobility,to develop the AMR drive wheel module and the plug and play PnD platform(Plug&Drive Module)drive module,which can integrate the in-wheel electric drive,suspension,steering,braking and other components,A variety of personal transportation,logistics and service-based AMR applications have been derived from the PnD platform architecture.
Industry-university-research assistance AGV re-evolution to promote digital upgrading of PCB industry
Recently,the Institute of Industry and Research has cooperated with Jialianyi,a PCB soft board factory,and Taiwan University of Science and Technology to build a miniaturized AGV,emphasizing its combination with artificial intelligence(AI)identification technology to assist Taiwan circuit board manufacturers in introducing intelligent manufacturing technology,accelerating the transformation into a smart factory,and overcoming the shortage of manpower in the production line.It is expected to improve the efficiency of the production line by more than 20%and reduce the working time of the process by 50%,And then enhance the competitiveness of Taiwan’s PCB industry in the international market.
The Institute not only miniaturizes the current AGV equipment,but also adds multi-degree of freedom loading and unloading mechanism,AI vision technology,etc.to realize human-machine co-work to carry materials and improve the efficiency of the production line;It can also ensure the correct operation of personnel through the robot’s built-in personnel posture identification system,reduce the loss of production line suspension caused by operation errors,and provide a more safe,reliable and complete intelligent manufacturing solution in the field.It is expected to complete R&D and field verification by the end of 2023,which will help PCB and semiconductor manufacturers accelerate the transformation into smart factories and improve the international competitiveness of the industry.
Liang Longzhen,the special assistant of Jialianyi Forest Headquarters and the host of the plan,pointed out that in order to continuously optimize the flexible printed circuit(FPC)intelligent manufacturing,focusing on the development trend of PCB intelligent factory,Jialianyi continued its experience in successfully developing reel-type materials for many years,and expected to develop human-machine cooperation autonomous mobile robot through the cross-industry chain of practical talents and research and development energy from three parties.
So as to assist the personnel in handling the loading and unloading mechanism of various reel-type semi-finished products,and increase the automatic identification function between the process stations,so as to reduce the pressure of the production line and improve the production efficiency with intelligent technology.At the same time,starting from the upgrading of the new generation of reel-type soft board material technology,we will create a more precise processing technology,so that Taiwan’s soft board industry can widen the gap with international competitors and meet the increasing market challenges.
Lin Boting,professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Taiwan University of Science and Technology,further said that the cooperation between autonomous mobile robot(AMR)and personnel is a challenging key technology with high development potential.At present,there are few AMR with a load capacity of more than 10kg in academia and industry.Gravity balance design is one of the feasible methods to improve the load capacity of robots or handling mechanisms on AMR.
In addition,in order to achieve safe and efficient human-computer cooperation,intelligent sensing,visual identification and AI artificial intelligence are inevitable development trends.AMR needs to conduct a large number of computer calculations.It must transmit a large number of images and data to a remote high-performance computer for calculation,and then transmit the control information back to the robot’s control system,and finally use the variable key to improve information security.The important technologies in the above links are the urgent development direction of Taiwan’s intelligent manufacturing field.It is expected that the industry-university-research cooperation will work together to increase the competitiveness towards international development.
The Industrial Research Institute breaks through the bottleneck of multi-computer control and establishes the prototype of group computer cooperation
It is worth mentioning that,according to the definition of”Hyper-automation”put forward in Gartner’s first ten strategic technology trend reports released in 2020,it originally refers to the ability to quickly identify,review and automate business and IT processes,integrate a variety of technologies and platforms including AI,machine learning,machine human process automation(RPA),low/no program code platform and process management,and drive enterprises to realize various business scenarios with business.
When industrial organizations achieve automation in production and operation processes,the scope of collaborative production will no longer only be”human-machine cooperation”,but will further reach”multi-machine cooperation”.In response to the increasingly complex processing and manufacturing processes,Taiwan’s smart factories have also moved from single machine to multi-machine automation.However,if we want to integrate different brands of equipment and carry out multi-machine cooperation,the industry still faces multiple challenges such as personnel maintenance,cost increase and personnel safety.
Rao Daren,director of the Institute of Mechanical and Electromechanical Systems of the Industrial Research Institute,believes that:”Although the single machine is the strength of the global indicator manufacturers,Taiwan’s advantage is that it has advanced ICT technology,complete machinery and electrical machinery industry supply chain,and high-level scientific and technological talents.It can integrate multiple sensing,visual identification,and high-precision multi-machine collaborative control technology,and endow robots with richer technological skills.In the future,it is expected to become the focus of Taiwan’s innovative industry and create the next wave of Taiwan’s economy To stimulate growth.”
At present,the layout strategy of the Technology Department of the Ministry of Economic Affairs for Taiwan’s robot industry is also gradually moving towards multi-machine,intelligent and systematic development to cope with more complex processing and production processes.In recent years,the Industrial Research Institute has also actively invested in multi-robot collaborative control technology to help manufacturers break through the restrictions of the factory brand,so that robots can communicate with each other,and can synchronously control industrial robots with more than 14 axes to complete complex production tasks.At present,it has been actually introduced into shipbuilding and medical materials industry,and gradually introduced into different industries such as automotive,aerospace and rubber and plastics.
In order to achieve the capacity optimization in the process of transportation,the Institute focuses on the most complex dispatching algorithm.In addition to providing cross-brand guidance,the development of multi-vehicle dispatching system can also take into account the flexibility and safety of the pre-empt/insert/combine operation;Considering the communication delay of wireless network,select the robot most suitable for the assigned task to ensure that there is no collision risk between robots and dynamic and static obstacles,so as to optimize the handling efficiency.
Guangyun introduced Robot Smith application field to expand logistics
During this year’s”Taiwan Robots and Intelligent Automation Exhibition”(TAIROS),the Institute of Industry and Technology also released the robot’s high-order intelligent controller(Robot Smith),which is known as the world’s largest number of axes,that is to say,it can simultaneously control three robots of different brands at home and abroad across platforms,carry out multi-machine cooperative operations,and reduce personnel maintenance and operating costs;And let robots communicate and coordinate with each other to improve the absolute accuracy to within±0.25mm;Integrating AI vision to identify the behavior intention of the surrounding people,real-time obstacle avoidance protection,taking into account the safety of people,and increasing the productivity of the robot subsystem controller by more than 50%.
According to Huang Jiahui,the engineering manager of Guangyun Machinery,who also published an example of cooperation with the Industrial Research Institute,it is believed that the two sides can integrate the successful experience of RobotSmith in metal processing with the company’s KRS system and extend it to the logistics center in 2021 to create an automatic warehousing and picking system DPS,so as to make up for the manpower gap generated in the cumbersome picking stage of e-commerce logistics;Solve the problem that the logistics center operators are not willing to import robots because of the lack of internal technical talents.
Today,the intelligent picking system has become the epitome of the intelligent factory.It will be able to use Robot Smith to solve relevant problems,so it has high scalability and can provide one-stop integration services,including supporting multiple sensors,and improving the quality and accuracy of flexible production;Collect data through the Internet of Things and establish a war situation center;Customized and graphical process management interface simplifies complex procedures with one click.KRS can also integrate equipment and systems to generate automatic paths,virtual and real integration,and provide different scene applications through AI data,which can make everyone an engineer.
Upgrade autonomous mobile handling equipment and look at the business opportunities of foot-type robots
Finally,due to the diversity of AGV/AMR application scenarios and the adaptability of human-machine cooperation,it has become the trend of robot development.The next step will be the”legged robot”with bipedal/quadruped motion.Although it has the advantages that traditional wheeled robots can not achieve,it has good flexibility to roll and jump,and overcome rough and bumpy terrain;However,there is still room for improvement in load and efficiency,and the speed of travel is slow and the cost is high.According to Frost&Sullivan’s survey,when robots are gradually popularized and the cost is reduced,the biped robot market will grow.It is estimated that the cumulative total market size will be up to 1.577 billion US dollars,or about NT$50.9 billion,from 2022 to 2026.
For example,the Digit robot of Agility Robotics,which tried to use the biped mobile platform and arms to carry out the transportation work,cooperated with Ford Motor in 2019 to carry out the delivery service of the last mile in combination with self-driving.At present,the most famous biped robot is Tesla Optimus,which combines the core elements of self-driving.It combines gait trajectory,arm motion planning and robot balance control methods to accelerate the development and application of biped robot products.
However,the development of foot robots in the future is still full of challenges,including the increasing number of input manufacturers,which must focus more on product cost and price control,product positioning and niche application,so as to break through key technologies and overcome the outdoor environmental changes;Multi-party links to find partners;Expand product sales and try various application scenarios.