Dual Robot Log Handling

The goal of the project is to design end effectors and program two 6-axis robots to pick up, rotate, and manipulate a log through a band saw to cut a log into a cant. The end effectors will bolt to the 6th axis of each robot and secure the log by penetrating the wood at each end. The cutting planes for each log will be determined by an optimized scan and communicated to the robots via a Programmable Logic controller. In the first year of the project, our goal is to complete the end effector design and program the robots to cut a single face of the cant.

=Project Value= In modern sawmills, logs are cut into lumber through a massive automated assembly line of hydraulic equipment, which is expensive to maintain and requires extensive computing power. This could be replaced by a two-robot system which can cut logs with greater efficiency and reduced overhead, maintenance, and computing costs.

=Product Requirements= =End Effector= The biggest challenges in the end effector design is implementing shock absorption along the log longitudinal axis without compromising bending under the gravity load of the log and while remaining within the strict size requirements. We constructed a couple rapid prototypes to test shock absorption methods of our end effector designs.
 * Rapid Prototyping :


 * End Effector Design :


 * End Effector Spike Penetration Testing :


 * End Effector Spike Geometry :

=PLC Programming=

=Robot Simulation= =Design Validation=

=Human Machine Interface=

=Team Members=

=Additional Documentation=


 * Schedule
 * Budget
 * Meeting Minutes
 * PLC Training
 * End Effector Alignment Rapid Prototype Drawing Package
 * Design Validation Plan
 * Team Contract