Development of automated material transporter system (AMTS) for laser cutting machine in automation industry application

Nowadays, the automation systems are widely used in manufacturing industry including robotic arm, conveyor system, automatic lifter system and so on. It can replace and reduce the manpower capacity and cost usage in manufacturing industries. Indirectly, this situation can improve the rate of production, safety, efficiency, and accuracy of the product manufacturing. In metal cutting process, the metal sheet is normally picked and placed on the laser cutting machine manually by the manpower. These activities are exposed to danger since the metal sheet is heavy and sharp, which can cause injuries. Generally, the process of loading and unloading the material to the cutting machine can affect the rate of production in terms of processing time, accuracy and precision between robot and human. In addition, the used of robotics technology in this process will boost the outcome of the industry. Therefore, an Automated Material Transporter System (AMTS) for Laser Cutting Machine is proposed which able to handle the loading and unloading of the metal sheets in metal cutting process. Base on the testing performed which is the system’s home positioning for 10 attempts, the system is capable to improve the accuracy of loading and unloading process by about 99% in terms of system and raw materials positioning. The distance between the selected point of unloader part and the fixed point of system’s base provide the percentage error and accuracy of the system in 10 attempts of the positioning. Future recommendation can be made by replacing a the servo motor to stepper motor, in which able to change the vertical lifter mechanism to the vertical gearing mechanism. This improvement is expected able to reduce the vibration that occur during the process which can affect the accuracy of the vertical movement.