The ASPEN project, started in 2016 with Europe Technologies, Naval Group, Chantiers de l’Atlantique, CETIM & LS2N has just completed an important milestone, the delivery of the last cobot!

 

In shipbuilding, many welding operations are performed manually. The ASPEN project therefore aimed at robotising welding operations on a flat panel application to reduce the drudgery of the work while taking into account the industrial constraints linked to the shipbuilding sector, i.e. productivity gains and constant welding quality.

 

To meet the requirements of the shipbuilding industry, several technological bricks have been developed with all the partners:

 

– Embedded intelligence to enable the cobot to adapt to the real constraints of the parts to be welded (welding gaps, manufacturing dispersion, etc.)

– Welding parameters and configurations

– Mobility of the cobot adapted to reach the majority of the welding areas and to allow the cobot to move autonomously

– Coactivity: integration of scanners to detect the presence of operators

– Configurator software : to reduce/eliminate offline programming time by automatically generating trajectories and optimising the movements of the different cobots

 

These different technological bricks have been integrated into different prototypes and evaluated during different trial programs. The results of the tests are very promising and will be confirmed through a final session, in production conditions, with the latest version of the cobot.

 

Consideration is being given to launching a new project between now and the end of the year to develop new technological bricks and, in the medium term, to industrialise the cobot.

 

>> The moovie in english version is in progress !