Honda scores a hit with positioning system

Advanced servo drives, motion control systems and robotics from Yaskawa help Honda's volume production of car bodies at two car plants in Swindon.

Advanced servo drives, motion control systems and robotics from Yaskawa help Honda's volume production of car bodies at two car plants in Swindon.

Much of the equipment was installed following a global quality and innovation initiative from Honda that was called "Taikai".

It might have been hard to imagine in 1985 when the first shovel full of earth was dug at a former airfield in South Marston, near Swindon, that by 2002 mass produced new cars would be rolling off the production line.

Today, Honda is a significant employer in the Swindon area where their associates work in making a full range of the popular Honda Civic and CRV models.

Such has been the success of the European car plant following the significant investment by Honda in plant and equipment in the past decade and a half.

The second car plant cost the company over GBP 100 million and opened about a year ago.

It contains some of the most advanced equipment in the world.

Yaskawa servo motion had been selected for transfer line control in the original Honda plant in Swindon as were Yaskawa Motoman robots.

The new car body welding lines in the number two plant, however, demonstrate the best technology to date.

Recently, approximately 130 additional Motoman robots were installed in various applications around the plant together with Yaskawa servo motion control systems.

The six-axis articulated Motoman robots manipulate car body panels and perform the spot welding.

The welding arrangement is unusual in that the welding heads are operated electrically rather than pneumatically, and are treated as a seventh axis on the robot.

Gordon Williams, department manager for Honda Engineering Europe, explained that the electrical control of the welding electrodes gives better control over pressure and other parameters which in turn gives the quality Honda requires.

The Motoman robots naturally use Yaskawa's own latest servomotors and drives.

Yaskawa servomotors, amplifiers and the company's latest motion controllers, control the jigs and fixtures within the body welding lines.

Typically up to 26 axes are controlled within each cell and with such high volume production as at Honda, speed, consistency and reliability are all paramount requirements.

Tolerances on the jigs and fixtures are of course a paramount factor, which means the accuracy of the transfer motion must clearly be better than Honda's expectations.

Traversing is at speeds up to 2m/s, which is fast for a transfer line.

Using absolute encoders for position and speed feedback from the servomotors, not only does the Yaskawa system deliver the required accuracy, but also there is no need for position verification at the final stopping points.

Yaskawa Sigma servomotors from 200W to 15kW are deployed in the Honda systems, powered by complementary Servopack amplifiers that are networked across Yaskawa's own Mecatrolink twisted pair fieldbus.

Motor cable runs are up to 50m within the transfer line and yet, apart from appropriate filters that are fitted within the control panels, there is no need for any further noise immunity measures using the Yaskawa motors.

The amplifiers are controlled by rack mounted motion controllers, called MP920, that in turn are linked directly to Omron PLCs via a DeviceNet interface.

The motion programs were created using Yaskawa's own CP717 programming tools, but as a collaboration between Yaskawa and Honda in Japan.

Programs are downloaded to the motion control system via a laptop PC.

The MP920 motion controller is capable of controlling up to 224 axes within a bus based system.

It has analogue, communication or pulse outputs, giving speed control, torque control and position control facilities.

Various modules can be fitted within a single rack and at Honda there is a rack-to-rack connection using Yaskawa's EXOF expansion module.

The advantages the Yaskawa systems provided for Honda, apart from the renowned reliability of the motors and drives, were a simple and inexpensive fieldbus in Mecatrolink that was easily installed, and a modular motion controller that was inherently integrated with the drives.

Gordon Williams concluded, "We have used Yaskawa Motoman robots and Yaskawa servomotors and drives for years and we know the equipment and find it very reliable.

The decision to use Yaskawa was a corporate one at Honda, based on Japanese models within the global Taikai process".

The Taikai process took place across most of Honda's manufacturing plants including Japanese, North American and Canadian, as well as in the UK.

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