DESIGN AND SIMULATION OF A DUAL-ARM ROBOT FOR MANUFACTURING OPERATIONS IN THE RAILCAR INDUSTRY, 434-447.

Ilesanmi Daniyan,∗ Khumbulani Mpofu,∗ Felix Ale,∗∗ and Moses Oyesola∗

Keywords

ANFIS, assembly operations, FIR, railcar, robotic solution∗ Department of Industrial Engineering, Tshwane Universityof Technology, Pretoria 0001, South Africa; e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]∗∗ Department of Engineering and Space Systems, National SpaceResearch and Development Agency, Abuja, Nigeria; e-mail:[email protected] author: Ilesanmi Daniyan

Abstract

The development of robotic solutions for manufacturing operations of a railcar and intelligent coordination of the entire system will increase the productivity of the entire manufacturing process. In this work, a 16-axis dual-arm robot fitted with intelligent system for the handling, machining, assembly and inspection operations during railcar manufacturing was proposed. The system comprises a specially designed end effector manipulator for performing the manufacturing operations during railcar development. The mea- surement of the process conditions and collection of data, as well as the monitoring, diagnosis and efficient communication of the process conditions, in real time is made possible with the aid of the smart sensors fitted into the robotic arm. The Solidworks 2017 version was employed for the computer-aided design and the finite element analysis of the robotic arm, while the simulation was done with the aid of the adaptive neuro-fuzzy interference system and the neuro-adaptive learning in a MATLAB 2018b environment. This was performed for determining performance of the robotic arm in a virtual environment most especially the path planning operation and the kinematic motion of the robotic arm. Results obtained from the simulation indicate that the robotic arm can operate smoothly with a mix of strength and flexibility. Hence, it is suitable for handling, machining and assembly operations during railcar manufacturing with high operational efficiency.

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