When an order was placed, a robot took a rod from a pile of raw materials, fixed it on a machine tool, removed the draft product from the machine tool and located it on a different machine for further processing, and eventually transferred the final product from the machine onto a portable tray. After that, an intelligent camera took a picture of the product, information of which was written right into the electronic label on the tray, which was then moved to the Final Products Area where a second robot transferred qualified products on to shelves after reading the electronic labels.
This was a scene witnessed by our correspondent at the Industry 4.0 – Intelligent Factory Lab，first of its kind at home on Jiading Campus, Tongji University on 28thOct. 2014. The lab was set up jointly by the Sino-German College for Applied Sciences of Tongji University and PHOENIX CONTACT, Germany following one-year preparations.
Based upon achievements made through long-term cooperation between the university and the German industry, Sino-German College for Applied Sciences and PHOENIX CONTACT started their work on a plan of Industry 4.0 – Intelligent Factory Lab a year ago, which was then followed by implementation of the plan. They succeeded in transferring their concept to practice within a year. The lab will be open to teachers for their teaching and research, to students for their technology innovation and to the university and industry for education and training of engineers.
Our correspondent saw at the lab processing equipment including robots, digital machine tools, digital processors, a wide range of hardware and software including robot sliding tracks, variable-frequency conveyers, intelligent cameras, servers, control software and service software. A system integrated the hardware by means of advanced control strategy and service software to realize coordination among human, processing and intelligent communication of robots.
In the future, an intelligent warehouse and an AGV will be introduced to the lab to realize horizontal integration of the Industry 4.0 Lab. By then main production elements and resources used in current production in industry will be made good use of to build a production model of highly personalized and digitalized products and service so as to become a model application project of digitalized intelligent factory in the manufacture sector at home.
Translated by May Language Studio
based uponhttp://news.tongji.edu.cn/classid-8-newsid-44929-t-show.html
