Visual Guidance for Gluing

Visual guided gluing is a crucial technology in industrial automation. It perfectly combines machine vision and precise fluid control technology, significantly enhancing the accuracy, efficiency, and intelligence level of gluing operations. Before the gluing operation, an industrial camera quickly takes pictures of the workpieces on the assembly line to obtain image data. The visual processing software analyzes the images and precisely calculates the current actual position, rotation angle, and even height information of the workpiece by matching the pre-set reference points (such as the edges, holes, contours of the workpiece, etc.). The control system compares the actual coordinates calculated by the visual system with the theoretical coordinates set in the program to obtain the offset. Subsequently, it dynamically adjusts the path of the robot or the motion platform in real time to ensure that the gluing head always glues precisely along the actual contour of the workpiece. The system also synchronously controls the timing, flow rate, and pressure of the glue to ensure the consistency of the glue path. Advanced systems also take secondary photos after gluing to detect defects such as glue breakage, overflow, uneven thickness, etc., achieving "processing - inspection" integration. Benefits: High precision, strong applicability, increased production efficiency, process optimization, and product traceability.

1) The glue application trajectory accuracy is within ±0.5mm, completely eliminating the problems of missed application and excessive glue spillage caused by the deviation of workpiece positioning. The one-time product qualification rate has increased from the original 90% to over 99.5%.

2) When changing the workpiece model, there is no need to re-teach the robot. Just call the corresponding visual program, and the changeover time is reduced from several hours to minutes. The system can automatically identify different models of workpieces and call the corresponding glue application program, perfectly supporting flexible manufacturing.

3) Precise trajectory control avoids waste of glue, and the glue consumption is reduced by an average of 5%-10%. It completely replaces manual glue application and inspection positions, reducing labor costs and management costs. The extremely high qualification rate almost eliminates the rework costs and material scrap caused by glue application issues.

4) The system can record the visual positioning data of each workpiece, the parameters of the glue application process, and generate production reports, providing a data basis for process optimization and quality traceability.

1) Completing the hand-eye calibration of the camera and the robot, converting the position of the workpiece recognized in the camera coordinate system precisely into the coordinates in the robot coordinate system is the basis for achieving precise guidance.

2) For different gluing trajectories (such as straight lines, curves, and circles), the algorithm can stably identify the edges, corner points, or specific marking points of the workpiece.

3) The algorithm can effectively handle interference such as reflections, oil stains, and scratches on the workpiece surface, ensuring the stability and reliability of the positioning results.

In the production processes of electronic products such as mobile phones and headphones, gluing (such as sealing, bonding, and packaging) is a crucial process step. Traditional manual gluing or gluing by robots based on teaching programming have many problems. For example, there are positional and angular deviations in the incoming workpieces, and the fixed-programmed robots cannot adapt, resulting in deviation of the gluing trajectory, problems such as missed gluing, broken gluing, or uneven gluing lines; for flexible production lines with multiple varieties and small batches, each time a new workpiece is replaced, re-teaching and programming are required, which takes a long time and cannot respond quickly to production demands;

The gluing quality is highly dependent on the experience of the operators and is difficult to achieve standardized and digital management, and the product quality stability cannot be guaranteed; due to poor gluing, rework and material waste costs are high.

To solve these problems and improve production automation and product quality, we implemented the visual-guided robot gluing project.