Automatized Insertion of Multipolar Electric Plugs by Means of Force Controlled Industrial Robots

Abstract

Quality assessment of products produced in small numbers requires discontinuous allocation of work forces. Automatizing these processes leads to a significant increase in cost efficiency. In this paper the testing of a mechatronic product is addressed, which requires in particular connecting it to a controller by means of an electric plug. The paper presents a robotic solution that allows to robustly accomplish the electric connection. The solution relies on a model-based hybrid force-position control of an industrial robot. The particular challenge is that the electric plug is multipolar, i.e. it must be inserted with a certain orientation. The latter necessitates a two stage approach for insertion, which distinguishes this problem from the classical peg-in-the-hole problem. Experimental results are presented for a prototype implementation on the real hardware. These results show a high success rate, and prove the practical applicability of the developed method.