Aerne Engineering has developed a high-speed assembly cell specifically for injection-molded parts. In less than 1.2 seconds and with a reject rate of less than one percent, three parts, which are available in a total of 50 variants, are assembled into more than 90 different assemblies.

Instead of just checking the presence of the correct components and the position, the system monitors the respective press-fit pressure and feeds in faulty and calibrated parts in defined cycles in order to continuously verify the inspection process. Bad parts are automatically separated into four categories based on the defined type of defect. This ensures that deviations in the upstream processes can be quickly detected, assigned and eliminated with pinpoint accuracy. If components or sub-components change or the range of parts increases, the system can be converted quickly and with minimal effort.

A total of eight electric pick-and-place units ensure short cycle times of less than 1.2 seconds and a high degree of variability in the assembly system. The units are combined with pneumatic parallel grippers and in some cases with dynamic, high-performance damped swivel units. The pneumatic actuators are supplied directly with compressed air via micro valves that are integrated directly into the units. On the one hand, this minimizes compressed air consumption and therefore energy consumption, and on the other, the micro valves enable extremely short closing times.

The gripper fingers, in turn, have been designed so that they can grip different components without the need for manual intervention and without damaging sensitive areas of the components. According to the company, it will even be possible to integrate an automatic gripper change in the longitudinal direction of the pick-and-place units if components with larger geometric deviations need to be handled in the future.

The unit is moved via a wear-free direct drive instead of a motion transmission that is susceptible to tolerances and wear. This minimizes maintenance costs, increases continuous repeat accuracy and simplifies programming. Equipped with two stationary motors, the unit does not require any moving motor cables, which are prone to failure. It also has a repeat accuracy of 0.01 millimetres per axis. Intelligent controllers can control both the boom arm and the actuators without a higher-level controller. The necessary software is already integrated. Depending on the component, different positions can be reached on the fly. as