Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Open Access Master's Report

Degree Name

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MS)

Administrative Home Department

Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics

Advisor 1

Aleksandr Sergeyev

Advisor 2

Craig Friedrich

Committee Member 1

Scott Kuhl

Abstract

Robotic automation is consuming the laborious tasks performed by workers all over industry. The increasing demand for trained robotic engineers to implement and maintain industrial robots has led to the development of various courses in academia. Michigan Tech is a FANUC Authorized Certified Education Training Center for industrial robot training. This report discusses the research and development of an integrated robotic workcell consisting of three Fanuc robots, Allen Bradley programmable logic controller (PLC), Mini-Mover belt conveyor and Fanuc iR-vision system. The workcell allows students to explore an environment similar to industry and intended to be used for laboratory hands-on activities in two robotic courses: Real-time Robotic Systems and Industrial Robotic Vision System. To complement hands-on activities and to meet the need of educating robotics to those without access to physical robots, an open source robotic simulation software "RobotRun" has been created in collaboration with a faculty member and students from Computer Science department. The features and a few training examples on the software have also been presented.

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