Universal Robots presents mobile plug-and-produce solutions at Hannover

At the Hannover Messe 2018, which takes place on April 23-27, Universal Robots will be demonstrating how ‘Plug-and-Produce’ facilitates simple and flexible automation solution implementation.

The company will be displaying practical application examples to show how versatile, swiftly integrated components are allowing companies to successfully meet challenges, such as a growing variety of products and increasingly flexible batch sizes. Most of the applications’ accessories come from Universal Robots+ ecosystem.

“At our booth, fair visitors will see for themselves that ‘Plug-and-Produce’ is a reality, thanks to our UR+ ecosystem. It offers access to a constantly growing number of grippers, sensors, software and additional accessories, all of which are guaranteed to be implementable via Plug-and-Play, says Helmut Schmid, General Manager for Universal Robots in Western Europe.

“This reduces installation time and costs for automation solutions and consequently makes them a realistic option, including for small and medium-sized companies,” he adds.

Universal Robots will be showing three UR3 robots that collaborate to screw flashlights together, insert a battery, and subsequently use a laser to label the lamps. This is an example of how complex applications are easy to automate with the right UR+ components (e.g., grippers from Schunk and Dahl, a laser from Telesys, and a force-torque sensor from OptoForce).

In another application with a UR5 and an ATI force-torque sensor, visitors can witness the robot’s “perceptual capacity”: The robot arm drives along a line on a plate with a strongly wavy surface. The visitor can move it and see how the robot always follows the stipulated contour along the uneven structure, an important condition, for example, for bonding processes or deburring.

Brand new in the UR+ range and also on display will be a Plug-and-Produce camera from Sensopart and an electric gripper from Dahl designed especially for collaborative applications. Both feature easy integration.

Visitors can also use software from Octopuz offline to program their own applications, and then have the results transmitted to a UR robot for a live demonstration.

A palletizing application which is particularly interesting for representatives from the logistics and packaging sectors, who are increasingly discovering the advantages that collaborative robots offer.