Automation of refilling station in clean room

Abstract: This thesis aims to confirm a proof of concept on how to get a robot to pick up a plastic bag containing 3500 plastic caps, cut it open and pour the content, all within a restricted Clean room. The work was executed in an agile way with several ongoing iterative processes in parallel. In the present production line, refilling caps are done manually. For those working in the production line, this task entails heavy lifting and the concern of keeping an eye out for when to refill and how many caps there are in the production line all the time. The result is a working prototype of a robot tool, consisting of a combined clamp and vaccum bag gripper and a self standing linear unit with a blade mounted to it. When tested, this proved to be a functioning solution to the task in hand. The gripper is designed to be mounted on a six axis industrial robot and the blade is placed inside a robot cell. Simulations show that the task is easily done fast enough to supply 5 production lines, producing in full speed,with caps. Solely this unit will not contribute much to a production line if implemented in a factory, since it does not take material flow into consideration. It can merely be seen as a part of a bigger automation chain.