Look Ahead: Titanic robot, tiny tolerances

In 2007, the KUKA Titan entered the Guinness World Records as the world’s largest and strongest robot. A decade later, a modified version of the behemoth has accuracy unprecedented for its size—better than 100µm (0.0039″).

This customized device was developed to give the U.K. aerospace sector a unique capability for high-accuracy robotic machining.

The University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) launched the Flexible Robotic Machining in High Accuracy Applications project with Boeing Co. The project had backing from the U.K.’s Aerospace Technology Initiative (ATI) to develop an accurate robotic milling system.

The goal was to “create the most accurate large-volume machining robot in the world,” said Ben Morgan, head of AMRC’s Integrated Manufacturing Group at its Factory 2050 collaborative-research facility.

The modified KUKA Titan at AMRC’s Factory 2050. Image courtesy of AMRC.

AMRC started with a KUKA Titan that could carry a payload of more than 750kg (1,653 lbs.), with a reach of over 3.2m (10.5′). The team replaced the encoders that let the robot know where it was in space with highly accurate Renishaw rotary encoders, linking them to its Siemens 840D controller.