Building adaptive solutions: Heading for high speed flexible mechatronic production lines

To produce economically under increasingly variable conditions, manufacturers are building adaptive solutions based on mechatronic product transport systems like ACOPOStrak from B&R, the Machine Automation division of ABB.

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_{Johannes Vitzthum, ABB Robotics & Machine Automation, Eggelsberg, Austria, johannes.vitzthum@br-automation.com
Isabella Back, ABB Robotics & Machine Automation, Salzburg, Austria, isabella.back@br-automation.com
Armin Steinhauser, ABB Robotics & Machine Automation, Linz, Austria, armin.steinhauser@br-automation.com}

When a social media sensation sparks an overnight spike in demand, adaptive manufacturing lines are quick to pivot and catch the first wave. When digital consumers expect personalized products to be delivered quickly, adaptive systems adjust on the fly to run mixed batches and package custom sets »01. When production moves closer to consumers, adaptive solutions make small batches – even batches of one – with the efficiency of mass production.

Adaptive manufacturing solutions get their special blend of intelligence, flexibility and efficiency from today’s most advanced automation: smart software and open communication standards, digital twins and edge computing, perfectly coordinated robotics and AI-enhanced machine vision »02. Fully adaptive manufacturing might not be possible, however, if it were not for a major evolution in one particular area: product transport.

Unlocking adaptability with mechatronic transport

When people imagine a production line, the first thing that comes to mind is often a conveyor belt. Yet, because of the rigid sequence of processes they impose, these mechanical movers often limit flexibility.

Mechatronic systems, based on linear or planar motor technology, work much differently. Here, the motor itself essentially becomes the conveyor. In a linear motion system like ACOPOStrak, the active part of the motor – the stator – extends along the entire transport path in the form of a track. The passive part of the motor – the rotor – takes the form of shuttles that carry products along the track. This evolution elevates product transport into a new role. What before may have been considered auxiliary equipment – a means to an end – now becomes the intelligent, value-adding backbone of the entire operation. By eliminating mechanical power transmission, mechatronic systems avoid slippage and wear, enabling movements with both high dynamic forces and extremely repeatable precision. Whether the product is an electric vehicle battery cell, an insulin pen or a package of chips – such systems carry each item on a unique high-speed journey through production.

In these dynamic processes, shuttles must often switch from one track to another – whether to sort out defects, balance flow among parallel processing stations, or merge products from different lines to be packaged in custom sets. While other linear motion systems do this using mechanical rails or gates, B&R’s ACOPOStrak diverter technology »03 is fully contactless. In the absence of wear-prone moving parts, switching can occur at full production speed (up to 5 m/s) with no spacing needed between the 50-mm shuttles.

This patented technique is based on the principle of field weakening. In field-oriented control, the motor’s magnetic field comprises two perpendicular components: the d-axis (direct axis) produces the force that holds the shuttle on the track, while the q-axis (quadrature axis) produces the torque that propels the shuttle along the track. When a shuttle is moving between two opposing tracks, reducing its d-axis current weakens the magnetic field generated by the stator and allows the shuttle to switch sides.

Adaptability at scale: High speed and high density

With highly dynamic control over the speed, spacing, and routing of each individual shuttle, it becomes possible to perform processing steps all along the track, even while in motion. Square meters otherwise consumed by buffer zones and empty stretches of conveyor instead host high-value processing. Different products – with different sizes, shapes, contents, closures or labels – each get exactly the treatment they need with minimal intervention or downtime. The ability to split and merge product flows at full speed makes it possible to optimize throughput with asynchronous workflows and robust fault tolerance. Together, these and other capabilities target all three factors that define overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) »04, thus helping manufacturers maintain high availability, performance, and quality as they adapt on the fly.

A B&R customer in the cosmetics industry illustrates the order-of-magnitude impact this can have: Replacing three of four existing lines with one adaptive line, they reduced their footprint by around 75 percent while maintaining nearly the same overall output. The changeover time to a new bottle with a pump closure went from three hours to 40 minutes. A batch of shampoo and conditioner with a new bottle design that would have taken around three weeks was produced in five days. Similar results can be seen from customers in many other sectors as well, such as one in medical device assembly who achieved a double-digit boost in productivity while at the same time reducing the footprint of the machine – avoiding the cost of building a new cleanroom.

The integral role of software

Bringing the inherent flexibility of mechatronic hardware to life, software and AI add value throughout the lifecycle of an adaptive manufacturing solution. This process begins at the very first steps of conceptual design, where ACOPOStrak Designer »05 makes it easy to plan a layout graphically, simulate throughput and energy consumption, and then generate the machine code at the push of a button. During operation, advanced control software dynamically routes products through an easily configurable network of processing stations, adapts movement parameters to changing conditions, synchronizes with pick-and-place robots and other systems, and makes subtle adjustments to ensure gentle product handling and minimize sloshing of liquid contents during high-speed operation »06. Each shuttle is uniquely identified and inherently provides an array of data, which can be visualized in the ACOPOStrak Monitor app »07, and used on site or remotely for data-driven, AI-enhanced performance optimization and predictive maintenance.

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