GIMATIC and PILZ

The evolution of the industry goes through the collaboration of leading Companies that combine their best products to achieve innovative solutions and cover the real needs of factories With this goal, Pilz Spain and Portugal and Gimatic Iberia have started a cooperation to offer a robotic application with automatic tool change.

“This combination provides an interesting solution between a robot with high levels of security, strong and high performance with compact and flexible tools,” Javier Rodríguez, General Director of Gimatic Iberia, explains about the application.

Pilz Service Robotics Modules

One of the parts that includes the joint application is the one formed by the new Pilot Service Robotics Modules, which the expert company in safe automation has launched this year in Spain coinciding with Advanced Factories 2019. This set consists of a manipulator, a fully modular control module and control device. “Its main characteristics are flexibility, through the ROS software framework, as well as intuitive operation and speed of commissioning based on plug and play technology”, specifies the new product Toni Guasch, Robotics Competence Center Manager of the firm in Spain and Portugal.

The PRTM control module incorporates a management and visualization software developed by Pilz, which allows the robot to be operated through a graphical user interface. The panel offers the functions of operating mode selection, emergency stop and diagnosis, and simplifies the configuration and learning of the robotic arm through a touch display and independent buttons for manual control of the robot axes.

Thanks to these advantages, the robotic arm is programmable for all industrial and service environments, with a variety of operating and task requirements. Thus, the joint project with Gimatic “presents a real application of our new product, as soon as it reaches the Spanish market,” adds Guasch.

Magnetic tools with automatic Gimatic change

The change of tool is a usual operation in the industry, and therefore it is also the work of a robot in the workplace that an operator would perform. Ensuring that this automaton function is carried out with precision and efficiency is vital for high productivity.

This joint application has been adapted as a scoop a pneumatic automatic transmission with an interface designed by Gimatic Iberia and a warehouse with two tools, together with the fixing parts made with 3D printing. Thus, these automatic changes are designed to maximize the flexibility and reliability of the robot, combining robustness and high security in a compact and lightweight design. In addition, these features ensure that the arm can perform the operation continuously, for long periods of time, with precision and virtually no maintenance. The pneumatic change also includes permanent neodymium magnets, which maintain a very low residual magnetism, which makes them “safe because they do not change their magnetic state in case of leakage or loss of the pneumatic signal”, according to Rafael Ortega, responsible for Department of Mechatronic.