A new autonomous system using both vision technology and industrial robotics automatically performs trimming and sampling in wire rod rolling mills.
When rolling wire in a long product rolling mill, the head and tail is usually of inferior quality due to production-related reasons such as uncooled front ends or uneven cooling on the conveyor.
The ends are removed in a process referred to as coil trimming, typically within the confines of the coil-handling system. The most common method uses a system where the coil rests on the horizontal load-carrying member of a C-hook supported by an overhead conveyor structure. When the coil arrives at the manual trimming station, the front and back ends can be quite tangled, requiring untangling by the operator.
The operator identifies, separates, cuts and removes pieces of the wire, ranging from a short sample to several loops from the exposed end of a coil. This activity creates a very poor work environment and is a frequent source of injuries to the operator. There is also a negative impact on yield and product quality as each operator may interpret and implement the static trimming instruction differently.
AIC Group developed a patent-pending robotic system which eliminates manual trimming and cuts the wire with accuracy and repeatability, thereby reducing waste.
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