Towards fixtureless robotic in-line measurement assisted assembly, a case study

In the realm of Industry 4.0, measurement systems play an important role in adapting industrial robots to dynamic environments. Real-time control techniques such as Measurement Assisted Assembly (MAA) can exploit the digital measurements for operation process corrections. Likewise, the propagation of defects can be avoided with in-line measurement conditions. The purpose of this paper is to first understand the capability of robotic in-line measurement assisted assembly in the industrial case of peg-in-hole assembly and second, record the encountered challenges and their enablers. A proof of concept—formed by two 6DoF industrial robots, an in-line Linear Laser (LL), and an on-machine force sensor—have been designed and tested in a lab environment. The experimental results show that robotic in-line measurement assisted assembly can be performed within the tight tolerances of (i) 0,071 ° to 0,154° angular deviation between X and Y axes, (ii) applying minimum (near 0) Newton forces in X and Y axes when performing the peg-in-hole robotic assembly of two parts with only $50\mu \mathrm{m}$ clearance, and (iii) within the company's cycle time. Further, for the effectiveness and practicality of robotic measurement assisted assembly systems, we recorded the encountered challenges and key enablers.