Another world super project is coming! You can’t leave a good hand behind.

　　The flexibility of hands determines that human beings become the dominant species on this planet. Intelligent manufacturing is also inseparable from a good "hand". Nowadays, industrial robots are an extension of people’s hands. They are all-around players who can do both rough and fine work. The connection of submarine immersed pipes can be done by "super welder" with one hand; The industrial master machine for processing optical molds can be "seamless"; Is there really a "solar system" on the robot arm carrying the girder? Who is the "holy hand" to do holographic physical examination and local surgery for super water conservancy projects?

　　Welding the world super project with robots

　　Make welding more efficient, more accurate and more reliable

　　The deep middle passage has two directions and eight lanes, and the diameter of immersed tubes is larger than that of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. Each immersed tube weighs 9,000 tons, which is equivalent to a medium-sized aircraft carrier. A submarine tunnel is paved with 32 immersed tubes, which will be a world super project.

　　In the manufacturing base of steel shell of immersed tube for deep middle passage, a new immersed tube is about to start construction, which adopts sandwich structure.

　　As the name implies, the "sandwich" structure is a giant steel shell made of two layers of steel plates, and then concrete is poured between the compartments of the two layers of steel plates.

　　However, the giant steel shells are all welded, and the total length of the weld seam of each immersed steel shell exceeds 300 kilometers. If manual welding is used, a immersed steel shell needs more than 1,000 welders, and the construction period is as long as 12 months. If all 32 pipe joints are welded manually, it is obviously impossible to finish the task on time. This time, the engineer decided to start robot welding.

　　The robot measures the size and position of the steel plate, the brain sends instructions quickly according to the data, and the laser sensor on the welding gun tracks and identifies the weld, and corrects the deviation in real time.

　　If workers come to weld, they need to weld at least 6 to 8 times, and the robot can do it in one go, which is comparable to a "super welder".Long Hanxin, Chief Engineer of Project Management Department of GK01 Contract Section of Shenzhen-China Passage Project of Guangzhou Shipyard International Co., Ltd.With the same workload, we used to need 18 welders, but now we may only need 4 welders. Moreover, the quality of robot welding is relatively stable.

　　On the dock, the manufactured immersed steel shell is being lightered onto the ship. A pipe joint, the top surface area is equivalent to the size of 14 standard basketball courts. The flatness of the giant section reaches within 4 mm, and such high accuracy is rare in the world.

　　Hydraulic turbine maintenance robot

　　Repair the 41-year-old Gezhouba.

　　Gezhouba, the first large hydropower station on the Yangtze River, will celebrate its 41st birthday in 2022.

　　The runner is the "heart" of the generator set, and the water current drives the runner to rotate, converting as much energy as possible into electric energy. During normal operation, the surface of the runner is as smooth as porcelain, but the turbulent river brings energy, and at the same time, it also brings sediment to violently impact the runner surface, leaving uneven scratches, which seriously affects the health of the runner.

　　The 41-year-old Gezhouba is about to undergo a "major operation".

　　By manpower, it takes at least 3 weeks to repair a water turbine unit, and 3.6 million kilowatt-hours of electricity will be lost for one more day of repair. This time, the task of overhaul was given to the robot.

　　The robot is installed on the inner wall of the runner chamber of the hydraulic turbine, so that it can climb along the curved surface and work among the complicated impellers. Moreover, the polishing accuracy should reach micron level, which is more difficult than the doctor’s cosmetic surgery.

　　There is no precedent in the world for robots to overhaul large hydraulic turbines in situ. We will wait and see how the first generation of maintenance robots for hydraulic turbines perform.

　　In 2 hours and 20 minutes, the robot repaired two inner walls of nearly 1 square meter. The approval shows that the repetitive positioning accuracy of the robot reaches 0.06 mm, and the roughness of the machined surface is less than 1 micron, which is three times higher than the requirement.

　　In a narrow space, the robot is like a climbing Spider-Man, which can easily complete the maintenance of the inner wall and top blades of the runner. A robot can complete the maintenance work of 10 people in a week in 24 hours.

　　On May 18, 2022, the maintenance of the runner was completed, 30 days ahead of schedule. Intelligent solutions have given Gezhouba a new vitality.

　　Five-axis CNC machine tools are flowing.

　　Carve an electric guitar on the tip of a pencil

　　An optical mold part with a machined surface accuracy of micron level and a surface roughness of less than Ra10 nm can not be manufactured in batches by human hands, and it needs the help of precision CNC machine tools.

　　It takes nine knives to process this precision part, and each knife has a deviation of micron level, which is a small loss and a thousand miles away. It solves the problem of tool size error and is constantly approaching the highest standard in the international precision machining field.

　　The gap between the concave and convex surfaces of the workpiece is less than 5 microns, which is equivalent to one twentieth of the thickness of a piece of A4 paper, and the seam is really fit.

　　The adjusted five-axis CNC machine tool is like a pair of artists’ hands, carving a delicate electric guitar on the pencil tip with an area of only 10.35 square millimeters. Only when the axis motion accuracy of CNC machine tools reaches micron level can it be so smooth.

Fifteen years ago, the share of self-developed CNC system in domestic machine tool market was less than 1%, but now it has increased to 31.9%.

　　Domestic heavy-load robot

　　Every minute, you can complete the manufacture of the rear side panel of a car.

　　In the automobile factory in Wuhu, Anhui Province, 26 domestic heavy-duty robots are producing the rear side panels of automobiles. The wrists of these robots can carry 210 kilograms. They can accurately grab, feed and automatically identify the welds for welding, and can complete the manufacture of the rear side panels of a car every minute.

Today, about one-third of the world’s industrial robots are used in automobile factories. However, looking at 120 automobile factories in China, more than 90% of robots are imported from abroad. If it cannot be controlled independently, it will have a far-reaching impact on the whole industry, and domestic researchers should make up for this link.

　　Accuracy is the most difficult thing for a heavy-load robot to overcome. Today, the repetitive positioning accuracy of this 210kg heavy-load robot has reached 0.072mm, which is a step closer to the international first-class standard of 0.06mm..

　　There are hundreds of enterprises that produce industrial robots in China, but there are no more than 10 domestic companies that can mass-produce large-load multi-joint robots of more than 100 kilograms.

　　Heavy-load robot is a mountain that China robot enterprises need to climb urgently.

　　Accuracy retention reaches 0.3 arc minutes.

　　Chinese can finally produce a high-precision RV reducer.

　　In industrial production, robots that can take the lead often need to bear more than 50 kilograms, and the elbow joints of these pillars must use RV reducers with greater loads.

　　The annual output of industrial robots in China has reached 440,000. However, for a long time, 70% of RV reducers are foreign brands.

　　In 2015, Zhang Yueming, a professor at Beijing University of Technology, decided to challenge this domestic blank technology.

　　Turn on the RV reducer, which is like a solar system, with both sun gear and planet wheels. This is the cycloidal planetary gear of RV reducer. They are like planets around the sun, which have both rotation and revolution. They make 40 revolutions at the same time, and realize precise transmission through multiple planetary movements, which reduces the high-speed rotation of the motor and increases the torque to drive the robot arm to rotate.

　　After tens of thousands of times of repeated optimization, a unique design method of cycloidal planetary gear modification has been formed, which ensures that the profile errors of 39 tooth profiles are controlled within 4 microns.

　　After 100,000 tests, the accuracy retention of RV reducer reached 0.3 arc minutes, which completely solved the serious wear problem. Chinese can finally produce a high-precision RV reducer after crossing the rigorous micron manufacturing.

　　"China manipulator" stunning space

　　Cool as transformers

　　On November 17, 2022, the Shenzhou 14 astronaut went out to perform the mission. This is the first extravehicular activity after the T-shaped configuration of China Space Station is completed.

　　Working closely with the three astronauts are two "magic" mechanical arms.

　　The big robotic arm is called "Tianhe Robotic Arm", and its bearing capacity can reach 25 tons, so it can be called "Hercules" of China Space Station.

　　The small robotic arm is called "the robotic arm that asks for heaven". Although its bearing capacity is only 3 tons, it is very flexible.

　　Tianhe manipulator has two arms and seven movable joints, and its deployment length is 10.2 meters. Such a long manipulator must cover all working areas in zero gravity environment, and its accuracy must be less than 5 cm.

　　When the R&D team was at a loss, an engineer drew with compasses and was suddenly inspired. Just like compasses, they also let the two hands of large robotic arms act as "feet" and act as fulcrums for each other, alternately switching forward to realize crawling and transferring.

　　Young China engineers, who broke away from convention and made innovations, made Tianhe’s robotic arm perform tasks with a precision of millimeter, and accomplished the grasping of Tianzhou’s cargo cabin and the on-orbit indexing of the cabin. They were called "ever-changing King Kong" by netizens.

China’s research and development of space manipulator is 40 years behind the world’s, but the speed of our progress has amazed the world.