2014 Award Winners
Award-winning project: Adaptive control of welding processes
Project partners: Volkswagen AG, Wolfsburg | Steinbeis Transfer Center Applied Production and Joining Technology / ARGOS System Technology, Oldenburg
In automated production, many challenges arise from variations in the dimensions of parts supplied by subcontractors. Particularly for joining processes in the automotive industry, the position and fit of the workpieces to be joined must fall within tight tolerances in order to meet the high quality requirements. The quality of the components is regularly checked and optimised. In some cases, parameters of the automated process have to be adjusted manually, which makes this approach rather inefficient.
To minimise such manual intervention, the welding process in a production cell for the Volkswagen Touran model (Wolfsburg plant) is monitored using the ARGOS quality management system. ARGOS is a modular software programme developed by the Steinbeis Transfer Centre which, as a ‘cyber-physical system’ (CPS), can interact with the physical components of a manufacturing process to enable adaptive monitoring.
Experts at the STZ at Jade University of Applied Sciences in Wilhelmshaven are working on projects in the field of ‘Industry 4.0’ that focus on the networking of manufacturing process systems and quality-monitoring information processing. CPS interact directly ‘machine-to-machine’ via embedded, network-based technologies. The integration of physical objects such as sensors and devices into digital processes leads to the flexible coupling of systems that previously had no common interfaces. Depending on the task at hand, the ARGOS software can evaluate process and sensor parameters and process them in a targeted manner using sensor networks. Additional internal sensors ensure the accuracy of the assessment, whilst deviations can be compensated for in real time via actuators.
In the application implemented in collaboration with Volkswagen AG, quality-relevant characteristics of the component geometry are monitored and analysed alongside the welding parameters. If deviations are detected, the manufacturing process is automatically adjusted via control and regulation algorithms to ultimately ensure a weld seam that meets quality standards. Manual adjustments to the process parameters are no longer necessary. The technical realisation, as well as the implementation and testing of the system during the ongoing production process, presented the experts with challenges that could only be overcome through the excellent cooperation and communication between the project partners involved.
The potential of this application, which has been awarded the Steinbeis Foundation’s Transfer Prize – the Löhn Prize, is enormous, as it will enable not only welding processes but also numerous other manufacturing processes to be monitored and adapted in future.