A Collaborative Robotics Application for the Assembly of Car Rear Lamps

In this work we present the automation of the sticking of small components on car rear lamps, a swift and repetitive operation that is currently performed manually by an operator. The challenging automation of this process includes the delicate pick and place of tiny items in predefined positions on the rear lamps. Pick-and-place trajectories for the robot are planned and a custom end-effector is designed to accomplish the task. Furthermore, a safety approach is implemented to stop the robot in the event of a potential collision with the human operator. Finally, the impact of the cycle time on quantitative metrics for human-robot collaboration, as well as on the mechanical energy of the robot is evaluated. Experimental results on a UR5e manipulator show the feasibility of the operation, while meeting the robot constraints and the cycle time requirements.