RobWind – An Innovative Robot-Based Winding Method

Presented by

Considering the background of recent technological and economic developments, winding technology has to face special challenges. On the side of the economic trends a growing demand for customized winding products coming with smaller lot sizes and quantities with increased demands on the efficiency can be observed. In addition, the latest technological developments in the field of electrical engineering pose further challenges and opportunities for the winding technology, for example the integration of coils into complex product structures.

With the currently available winding methods, the present economic and technological requirements can not be met sufficiently. For these reasons and in view of the expected strong growth of the demand for innovative winding products, such as RF-ID or electronic drive-components in the automotive sector, the concept for an alternative winding method was designed at the Institute for Manufacturing Automation and Production Systems FAPS. In contrast to conventional winding methods, which generate winding movements by joining a combination of different kinematic individual elements under the aid of special wire-guiding elements, the new approach realizes the wire transfer only by moving a guiding nozzle on a bobbin adapted trajectory, with the bobbin remaining stationary during the winding process. In the paper this innovative production technique, named RobWind, is presented and the several specific advantages are discussed.