The archi­tec­ture and con­struc­tion indus­tries are respon­si­ble for con­struct­ing all liv­ing spaces. In Ger­many alone, 400,000 new res­i­den­tial units and asso­ci­at­ed com­mer­cial and pub­lic build­ings are expect­ed to be built each year, but only half of this demand can cur­rent­ly be met. Mean­while, the con­struc­tion sec­tor itself is fac­ing seri­ous chal­lenges: pro­duc­tiv­i­ty has been stag­nat­ing for years, the con­sump­tion of resources and ener­gy in con­struc­tion is con­sid­er­able, the vol­ume of waste is sub­stan­tial, and the cost of mate­ri­als and raw mate­ri­als is ris­ing rapid­ly. Automa­tion can pro­vide solu­tions here. SCHUNK is active­ly shap­ing this process – among oth­er things, with robot quick-change sys­tems.

The project team (from left to right): Ben­jamin Kaiser, Uni­ver­si­ty of Stuttgart, Matthias Buck, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor BEC, Dr. Felix Amts­berg, Uni­ver­si­ty of Stuttgart, Jür­gen Kol­bus, Key Account Man­age­ment, SCHUNK and Gun­ther Kopp, Key Account Man­age­ment Grip­ping Sys­tems, SCHUNK.

Dig­i­tal fab­ri­ca­tion media become design para­me­ters in civ­il engi­neer­ing

In 2019, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Stuttgart estab­lished the new Clus­ter of Excel­lence “Inte­gra­tive Com­pu­ta­tion­al Design and Con­struc­tion for Archi­tec­ture” (IntCDC), which aims to har­ness the poten­tial of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies for design, man­u­fac­tur­ing and con­struc­tion in the build­ing indus­try. “Our approach is to share dig­i­tal fab­ri­ca­tion media, such as CNC machines and robot­ics, as cre­ative design tools. We incor­po­rate them as para­me­ters for archi­tec­tur­al design right from the start,” says Dr. Felix Amts­berg, coor­di­na­tor of the wood plat­form at IntCDC at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Stuttgart. As a trained car­pen­ter and stud­ied archi­tect, he com­bines aspects of prac­ti­cal crafts­man­ship with the con­straints of design, tech­nol­o­gy and research.

“SCHUNK‘s exper­tise in automa­tion, robot­ics and han­dling is very impor­tant for us.”

Matthias Buck, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor BEC

Flex­i­ble man­u­fac­tur­ing solu­tions in con­struc­tion with SCHUNK com­po­nents

Togeth­er with the sys­tem inte­gra­tor BEC, a mobile, robot-based pro­duc­tion plat­form was recent­ly devel­oped that han­dles, process­es and assem­bles wood­en com­po­nents as required. “We get to turn ideas from sci­ence into actu­al sys­tems,” explains BEC Man­ag­ing Direc­tor Matthias Buck. “To do this, we use suit­able tech­ni­cal com­po­nents and mod­ules that meet all require­ments in all direc­tions – they must be reli­able, flex­i­ble and future-proof.” The core of the research pack­age was a robot­ic sys­tem that is sent in full as a mobile fac­to­ry to a tim­ber con­struc­tion com­pa­ny, a work­shop or a con­struc­tion site. “Once there, the sys­tem can sup­port the work as need­ed – for exam­ple, chip­ping, assem­bling, glue-bind­ing, glu­ing or nail­ing larg­er wood­en parts on site,” says Matthias Buck. “The heart of the sys­tem is the SCHUNK quick-change sys­tem SWS‑L that enables the robot to auto­mat­i­cal­ly pick up and put down any end effec­tors, for exam­ple grip­pers, saws or milling heads. We relied on these SCHUNK com­po­nents because we want­ed to take advan­tage of the bus tech­nol­o­gy used in the inter­change­able sys­tem to keep wiring to a min­i­mum,” Buck said.

In focus: per­for­mance, flex­i­bil­i­ty and future via­bil­i­ty

The plant is designed to keep all options open for max­i­mum future via­bil­i­ty. “We ini­tial­ly want to use the sys­tem to solid­ly and reli­ably imple­ment the cur­rent project and also real­ize new projects in the future.” The robot, a Kuka KR420/R3330 with a pay­load of 420 kilo­grams, trav­els on a BEC lin­ear axis, the sev­enth robot axis, which is per­ma­nent­ly inte­grat­ed into the con­tain­er plat­form. The change sys­tem SWS‑L from SCHUNK, which can hold up to 1,300 kilo­grams, is the robust inter­face to the tool. The SWS‑L per­for­mance is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant for milling work where large forces are involved. “Specif­i­cal­ly, the change sys­tem has a milling spin­dle and sev­er­al large-area grip­pers with a vac­u­um sys­tem that can han­dle and feed larg­er wood­en com­po­nents,” says Dr. Felix Amts­berg. “How­ev­er, oth­er work process­es can also be inte­grat­ed, because the tools can be exchanged as required via the adapter.” And it doesn‘t have to be wood – the sys­tem can also be used in oth­er trades.

In the future, the plant will be used as a mobile fac­to­ry in con­struc­tion loca­tions where it is need­ed.

The com­plete range of SCHUNK quick-change sys­tems con­sists of 20 sizes for pay­loads from one to 1,350 kilo­grams and cov­ers a wide range of appli­ca­tions.

The exper­tise of automa­tion expert SCHUNK is in demand

The cluster‘s method­olog­i­cal and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary find­ings should lead to wider use of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies and help over­come chal­lenges in the skilled trades and con­struc­tion indus­try. For exam­ple, it is pos­si­ble to visu­al­ize the readi­ness of com­po­nents dur­ing the plan­ning phase. Mate­r­i­al-spe­cif­ic robot­ic con­struc­tion process­es can sig­nif­i­cant­ly influ­ence new forms of human-machine col­lab­o­ra­tion. “SCHUNK‘s exper­tise in automa­tion, robot­ics and han­dling is very impor­tant for us,” Matthias Buck con­firms. And he con­tin­ues: “Thanks to their flex­i­bil­i­ty, we use quick-change sys­tems and oth­er com­po­nents from SCHUNK in var­i­ous projects. The tech­no­log­i­cal con­nec­tion between the Uni­ver­si­ty of Stuttgart, BEC and SCHUNK had exist­ed for quite a while. We are very sat­is­fied with it.

Quick-change sys­tems SWS and SWS‑L

The SCHUNK quick-change sys­tem SWS‑L is the heart of the sys­tem that enables the robot to auto­mat­i­cal­ly pick up and put down any end effec­tors, for exam­ple grip­pers, saws or milling heads. The quick-change sys­tem (SWS) con­sists of a quick-change mas­ter (SWK) and a quick-change adapter (SWA). The SWK mount­ed on the robot cou­ples the SWA mount­ed on the tool. A pneu­mat­i­cal­ly dri­ven lock­ing pis­ton with its patent­ed design, ensures a secure con­nec­tion.

Quick-change adapter SWA.

The change sys­tem SWS‑L can hold up to 1,300 kilo­grams.

Prod­uct infor­ma­tion:
schunk.com/sws