A dynamic point specification approach to sequencing robot moves for PCB assembly

Reducing the time it lakes to place components on to printed circuit boards (PCBs) is a major robotic assembly objective. This paper explores a robot control approach featuring dynamic choice of pick-and-place points for retrieving and inserting components. In this concept, the component magazine and PCB tray both move to calculated points that minimize the overall robotic assembly time. Compared with that of another approach which employs fixed positions for retrieval and insertion, the new approach avoids robot waiting time. The same assembly sequence and component magazine assignment was used to test the difference between these two approaches. In both models, the PCB worktables and magazine are assumed to be mobile and to move at constant velocity between points. Experimental results showed that the proposed dynamic pick-and-place (DPP) approach is superior to the fixed pick-and-place (FPP) approach in nearly all cases.