The Design And Simulation Of End Effector For Flooring Handling Manipulator

With the development of industrial automation, the robots have played an important role in industrial production. The robot technology updates rapidly because it can instead people from the work that is dangerous, heavy, and monotonous, and improve the productivity, reduce the production cost. Compared with the traditional handling pattern, the handling manipulator is more efficient and more accurate in handling and palletizing. But the manipulator has poor versatility. There are a variety of products with different parameters. When facing the one in different type, different parameters, the manipulator can’t adapt well to the change, and it can’t be a multifunction one. This is a limitation to the performance of the manipulator. In flooring production, there are special manipulators for the planks in different sizes, and this makes excessive manipulators working on the production line and it causes a waste of resources and the space of the production line.To solve the problem that the handling manipulators has poor adaptability in carrying the planks in different sizes, a design of the combined end effector has been put forward which integrated the one with vacuum cups and the clamper one. The design combined both advantages. It tries to make a multifunction manipulator, and reduce the number of the manipulators on the production line, and reduce the costs of the flooring production, and increase the productivity.With the analysis to the weight and size parameters of common floors, and the layout of the manipulators which working on the split process production line, a structure design of the end effector has been put forward. The accessories, including the vacuum cups, the vacuum generators, the cylinder of the clamper, and the cylinders of the lifting mechanism has been chosen. The vacuum cups holders, the transmission modules, the pedestal, and the arms etc. has been designed. And the 3D model of the end effector has been built by using the SolidWorks.A kinematic analysis has been made by using ADAMS. And it says that neither interferences between each parts of the clamper, nor the velocity mutations, and the acceleration mutations of the arms and splints show in the result.A statics simulation has been made by ANSYS, which result is the stress distribution diagram, and the strain diagram. By analyzing the simulation results, it shows that the bearing rod can meet the strength requirements. To save material and reduce the weigh, a structure optimization of the bearing rod has been done. The pre-designed bearing rod size (50mm×30mm×4mm) has been changed to a thinner one (50mm×30mm×2mm). A statics simulation has been made by ANSYS for testing if the hollow rod can still meet the strength requirement, and the weight of the end effector has reduced 3kg.Based on the parameter of the board and the layout of the flooring production line, a new type of combined end effector has been designed, and it can be used for carrying both of the boards before and after split. And it can increase the efficiency of the manipulator and reduce the production cost. The idea can provide a reference for the development and research of such products.