System and method for flexible manufacturing

Abstract

The system performs a process for creating robotic control code for manufacturing products. A Designer UI displays virtual parts and receives inputs for processing and assembling the virtual parts that are required to create a virtual product. The designer identifies options for processing and assembling the virtual parts which are displayed on the user interface. The robot abilities and the options are selected to optimize a metric of the product manufacturing. The inventive toolset produces the robot control codes for performing a sequence of robotic abilities with the selected options to product the product. The robot control codes are used by a simulator which manipulates virtual robots and virtual parts to create a virtual product to check the robot control code. The verified robot control code is used to control real robots to create the product.

1 . A method for robotic manufacturing a product, the method comprising:
 analyzing, by a designer tool on a design computer, a product design of a product having parts and assemblies and a set of product requirements, the designer tool being coupled with a database storing information about robot tooling and robot tooling abilities that are available in a factory;   inputting by a user through a user interface of the designer tool, mate points that define couplings between the parts and constraints on the assemblies of the parts;   determining, by the designer tool, a sequence of robot tooling abilities from the available robot tooling abilities for coupling the parts and the assemblies at the mate points in accordance with the constraints to manufacture the product that meets the set of product requirements;   determining, by the designer tool, available tooling options for the robot tooling abilities that can be used to manufacture the product that meets the set of product requirements;   displaying on the user interface of the design computer an exploded view of the product with the mate points and coupling options for the mate points that correspond to the available tooling options;   enabling a user to select one of the displayed coupling options for each of the mate points through the user interface of the design computer;   creating, by the designer tool, control codes for manufacturing the product by the robot tooling in the factory using the sequence of the robot tooling abilities and the selected coupling options;   simulating, by a simulator on the design computer, a manufacture of the product by virtual robot tooling using the created control codes;   verifying, by the simulator, that the created control codes provide for correct manufacture of the product; and   manufacturing the product by the robot tooling in the factory using the created control codes.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the constraints comprise a touch constraint which defines a first touch surface of a first part in physical contact with a second surface of a second part. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the constraints comprise a parallel constraint which defines a first surface of a first part in geometric alignment with a second surface of a second part. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the constraints comprise a concentric constraint which defines a first axis of a first part in concentric alignment with a second axis of a second part. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , the method further comprising:
 determining a cost of the product for the manufacture of the product; and   displaying the cost of the product on the user interface of the design computer.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , the method further comprising:
 determining a product weight for the product; and   displaying the product weight on the user interface of the design computer.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , the method further comprising:
 determining a speed of production for the manufacture of the product; and   displaying the speed of production on the user interface of the design computer.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , the method further comprising:
 determining an error in the created control codes during the simulating of the manufacture of the product on the simulator;   displaying on the user interface an error report describing the error;   determining a correction to the sequence of the robot tooling abilities and/or the selected coupling options for correcting the error; and   correcting the control codes for manufacturing the product based on the correction.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , the method further comprising:
 designing a factory configuration with a factory configurator on the design computer based upon the determined sequence of the robot tooling abilities and the selected coupling options to manufacture the product that meets the set of product requirements.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 9 , the method further comprising:
 exporting the factory configuration in a pre-determined format.