| Along with social progress and improvement of living standards, intense competition in the market has made the traditional large-scale production methods changed, and the demand for multi-variety and small- batch products is increasing, which makes flexible manufacturing systems become increasingly important in the market. Flexible manufacturing systems are suitable for processing tasks in multi-variety and small- batch production, which can increase labor productivity, improve the production environment, enhance the competitiveness of products, and bring enterprises greater economic benefits and social benefits. Most existed flexible manufacturing systems, which are bulky, costly, or lack of actual processing capacity, do not suit research or teaching.The composition and characteristics of a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) are analyzed. FMS is supposed to a hybrid system where the continuous events and the discrete events coexist. A hybrid simulation method for FMS based on Arena and Labview is proposed, and verified in the simulation of a small FMS, which provides a theoretical basis for the analysis of flexible manufacturing systems.A small-scale FMS platform for teaching and research is designed. It is composed of a C000026-type CNC lathe, C000056-type CNC milling machine, a joint-type robot, a right-angle type robot, and a transfer. A CNC system via computer parallel port is developed. The joint-type robot is designed for loading and unloading workpieces for the CNC lathe, and its control system based on single chip is developed. And so is for loading and unloading workpieces for the CNC milling machine by using PLC as the core control unit of the right-angle type robot. Semi-closed-loop servo control method is used for the transmission device, which keeps movement accurate and reliable.OPC technology is used to construct hierachical distributed control architecture for the flexible manufacturing system. OPC field bus connects communications between various automation equipments. OPC server is built by MCGS Configuration Software,while the client is developed using C# language. Customer orders can be submitted via the Internet, and the processing status of the platform can be monitored remotely. An experiment has been done to validate the reliability of this flexible manufacturing system.The flexible manufacturing system has the merits of hierarchical control and distributed control, which made the platform have the characteristic of modularity, openness and scalability.
|
PDF Full Text Request