Standard Robots Delivered 63 AMRs to a Photovoltaic Company

Standard AMR in a Photovoltaic Chinese Company © Standard Robots

As a manufacturer of autonomous mobile robots, Standard Robots is trying to make its mark on the PV industry, attempting to accelerate the automation of the industry. In this case, Standard Robots helped a well-known domestic PV company transport loads automatically by providing 63 AMRs for its entire factory. The company's director said, " After operating stably, Standard Robots’ 63 AMRs are able to successfully replace the manual handling and free the employees for other duties. Not only has it reduced production cost, but it has also greatly improved the productivity and safety of the company.” 

Project Demands

1. Overall demands
   The company needed to use AMR and the upper system to achieve fully automatic transportation of raw materials across the entire factory. This process includes: dispensers to surface texturization, surface texturization to diffusion, diffusion to lasers, lasers to etching, etching to annealing, annealing to PERC（Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell), PERC to rear paste, rear paste to top paste, and top paste to laser slotting.
2. Detailed demands
   Double-decker driving shelf: length-1450mm, width-880mm , height-1300mm, weight-400kg.
   ·Automatic transportation of raw materials: AMR transports the double-decker driving shelf to connect with the powerless drive belt which has to convey flower baskets from AMR’s machine station to the next process.

Project Challenges

1. Stringent positioning requirements
   Since the drive belt is powerless, it requires more precision to dock the back gear.
2. High handling capacity of AMR
   The company has tight production schedule and challenging time constraint of some processes (materials must be delivered within 5 minutes).
3. Strict safety requirements
   Conditions of on-site operation is complicated in the PV company.
4. Strict cleanliness
   Workshops in the PV industry are kept very clean but some dust will be generated while AMR operates.

Solutions

1. Hardware
   63 Standard Oasis 600C units, several automatic charging piles, 1 manual charger.
2. Software
   Matrix deployment software, FMS scheduling system, Standard central control system
3. Operation
   First, Standard Robots provides the latest FMS scheduling system with a navigation accuracy of ±5mm, combined with partial beacons attached to the machine station to achieve the docking accuracy.
   
   Second, Standard Robots optimizes the scheduling system and rationalizes the allocation of cyclic tasks during the pre-design process.
   
   Third, Standard Robots uses double diagonal laser radar for 360° bar code scanning, and cooperates with the vision module to ensure the safety.
   
   Fourth, Standard Robots reduces components that easily produce dust and employs wear-resistant soft wheels to reduce dust produced by friction with the ground.

Customer Values

1. Promote the automation of the company
   Raw materials handling, loading and unloading are successfully automated to reduce the workload of workers.
2. Add benefits for the company
   Direct machine-to-machine docking effectively reduces the possibility of material damages caused by falling silicon wafers.
3. Promote the IT management of the company
   A full information equipment management solution has been employed to monitor AMR status in real time.
4. Promote the digitization of the company
   The line side cache is effectively controlled to further optimize the site management and accelerate material turnaround.
5. Help the company overcome recruitment issues
   Recruitment challenges and low reliability of workers are effectively resolved.

To accelerate the PV industry’s development in the new sector, Standard Robots has offered flexible industrial logistics solutions based on its laser SLAM navigation AMR and RIOT management system. In the future, Standard Robots will make every endeavor to boost the automation of companies in kinds of industries.