Automated assembly of the

Initial situation and motivation

Once the components have been delivered by the suppliers, they are assembled into the complete vehicle at the OEM plant.

In contrast to body-in-white or painting, final assembly is often still characterized by manual work. This applies in particular to the installation of the wiring harness in the body.

Even before carpets or seats are fitted, up to six employees lay out the wiring harnesses in the bodywork at different points at the same time, then lay and thread individual strands. The fastenings and electrical connections are then plugged or screwed in.

This process is very critical in terms of time within the assembly line, extremely dependent on the workers and is now to be automated to a large extent. A collaborative cooperation model should therefore also be considered.

Current focus of work

Within the scope of SP 8, the process section from the removal of the assembly from the staging area next to the vehicle to the laying of the up to 65 mm thick main strands is examined first.

In the current project phase, the participants are concentrating on the following areas of activity:

• Creation of a demonstrator
• Practical implementation of the favored automation concept developed in the previous phase
• Validation, evaluation and comparison of other solution concepts (functional descriptions) in practice

For this purpose, a demonstrator based on the real assembly is set up, consisting of

• Hardware and software: robots, sensor systems (several cameras and force-displacement sensors) and control computer.
• Test objects that include a vehicle body-in-white and a defined sample wireWire Harness .

This is used to carry out practical tests to evaluate different concepts for the automated shoring of a partial line set.

Technical limits and possibilities will then be derived from the knowledge gained in this process.

We are also making the demonstrator available as a test facility for other sub-projects.

The outlook

After the first installation of a generic demonstrator wiring harness in a real vehicle body, we will gradually extend the dimensions to the entire vehicle.

To ensure smooth communication between the many sensors and different software modules, it is necessary to create a standardized syntax. Here we want to develop an interface design for the important sections of coarse and fine localization.

The question of balanced automation also arises: how can collaboration between robots and humans be realized in this confined environment?