DESIGN OF THE HANDLING PROCESS AT THE WORKPLACE WITH ABB ROBOT AND MODULAR CONVEYOR
Authors: Semjon Jan , Fufal Martin , Kocan Martin 
Published: December 2021

Urgency of the research. The use of robotic Pick & Place operations in industry is currently gaining in importance due to increasing productivity in the workplace. Deployment of such robotic workplaces in the food industry, where it is necessary to handle a large number of products, allows to maintain the competitiveness of the producers of these products. The ability to carry out demonstrations and trainings at workplaces that are not directly part of production allows students and workers to try out these processes without the need to shut down production. Target setting. The aim is to design a functional workplace, whose task will be to implement demonstrations of work in a robotic workplace. The designed workplace will also serve in the educational process, where students will have the opportunity to improve their knowledge in programming Pick & Place tasks using a parallel robot. At the same time, students will be able to program the logic of pallet movement on a modular conveyor and synchronize this movement with the robot's movement.Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. Automation or robotization would not be possible without the use of modern conveyor systems. Therefore, it is necessary to constantly try to modify the currently used systems so as to increase their productivity while maintaining the required quality. This can be achieved not only by optimizing processes, but also by using modern modular conveyor systems. Uninvestigated parts of general matters defining. Increasing the competence of employees and students in the programming of robotic workplaces improves their application on the labour market. This cannot be achieved only by theoretical preparation, it is necessary to have real training workplaces equipped with appropriate technology. The research objective. The aim was to design such a robotic workplace where it will be possible to increase the potential ofemployees or students and develop their creative thinking. The use of the proposed objects for manipulation has only a demonstration task and assumes that students will come up with their own design solution to the given problem during the training process. The statement of basic materials. Deployment of parallel robots in various operations has an ever-increasing trend. The preparation of suitable workers for the optimal use of such robotic workplaces is therefore also important due to the transition to Industry 4.0. Conclusions. The article describes the modification of a modular conveyor for the needs of a robotic workplace equipped with a parallel robot. The workplace is equipped with an IRB 360/3 - 1130 robot, a Bosch modular conveyor equipped with pallets and a belt conveyor of its own production. The parallel robot is equipped with a suction cup enabling the removal of parts weighing up to 300 g. The proposed handling process envisages the transfer of cube-shaped parts from a modular conveyor to a belt conveyor. When designing the workplace, it was necessary to replace the damaged control unit in the modular conveyor, equip the conveyor with a system of additional sensors and program the workplace. The proposed workplace will serve as a demonstration workplace on the university, as well as for training students in programming robots and a modular conveyor