PROJECT STORY #01
Development of
New Teaching Pendant
in the Pursuit of
Safety and Operability
Overview
Light weight but durable for a safe and smooth operation on a production site
A development story of the teaching pendant which is designed with ergonomics pursuing safety on a production site and actualized an universal design accommodating various needs
Teaching pendant is a device to help industrial robots to learn behavior. Existing products require a high proficiency as it showed only figures and simple illustration on a monochromatic image display. Along with the change of the workers' diversified needs in recent years, a major time of evolution has come to make teaching pendant easier to use.
This is our employees' story who worked hard to actualize "one-size-fits-all".
Project member
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PLANNING
Marketing and Strategy HQ Product Strategy Division
Automation & Sensing Strategy Department -
DEVELOPMENT
R&D Division
Explosion-proof &
Components Product
Development Department -
DEVELOPMENT
R&D Division
Electronics & Automation Product Development Department -
DEVELOPMENT
R&D Division
Electronics & Automation
Development Department -
PRODUCTION
Manufacturing Division
Manufacturing Technology Department
PROJECT STORY.01
Disabling of the safety function occurred on site, resulting in a hazardous situation due to the malfunction of the safety device.
Teaching pendant comes with IDEC's original 3-position enable switch (it turns off when it is not pressed, ON when lightly tapped, and OFF when pressed firmly), allowing to operate a robot safely.
A robot's teaching work could take long hours, and in some cases, a work could last for 8 hours at the most. In other words, a state of keeping the switch ON (lightly pressed & held) for several consecutive hours. If the operation is not designed to reduce stress, instead of manually controlling the switch, a worker might end up making a selfish decision to inactivate the safety feature by creating an artificial state to intentionally keep the switch ON by filling an object between a case and a switch.
If the safety feature is inactivated like that, a robot would continue operating even when a worker is endangered and it could lead to an accident. If the switch is not properly used, there is no way to keep things safe.
"In order to actualize a safe operation site, we need to come up with a product which minimizes a worker's stress with an intuitive operability instead of a device which switches are simply arrayed."
This is how we ended up developing a new product.
PROJECT STORY.02
One improvement after another...
By accommodating multiple conflicting needs, the best portability has been actualized at last!
"Portability" was the keyword to prevent necessary safety features from inactivation in order to protect workers' safety.
Based on ergonomics, in order to make the chassis easy for any workers to operate without fatigue, we have come up with the mechanical switch distribution, product form, interior board, etc. For pursuing an improved portability, we have repeatedly tested and improved the product operability by involving with many participants with different sizes of hands from small to big.
On the other hand, the product's external form needed to be minimized in order to actualize a light weight keeping users from getting tired for operating many hours. It caused a major impact to its internal board as a result.
During the process of the repetitive improvements, an internal layout change has occurred for the pursuit of the keyword "portability". Even the initial layout design was already smallest enough, the challenge gave our circuit designers a headache because they had no idea how to add a structure which is "light and portable". The size of the board became smaller by revising the parts layout along with their structure followed by modifying the software process.
The easiest possible handling structure was actualized by adding various devices including a dent which naturally guides a thumb shifting to a steady position, a groove for easy access to "3 position enable switch", and the like.
PROJECT STORY.03
The expressive power has been improved for actualizing an intuitive operability
In order to accommodate the diversifying needs we received from production sites, we have conducted a hearing session with multiple robot makers and investigated their operation methods.
Based upon the requests escalated through the results, the screen which used to be monochronic and displayed existing characters, figures, and simple illustrations, is now available in 32 languages, and uses a high-definition color LCD to display visual information such as pictograms on the screen to support operation. As a result, we have achieved "intuitive operability'' in the software section, regardless of the level of proficiency.
In addition, in the case of inching operation, in which the position is adjusted in small increments by repeating operations such as pressing a switch to drive the robot and releasing it to stop it, if the transmission instruction for termination is not sent in time, it could cause a delay in the robot's motion resulting in an accident. Therefore, a process to send an instruction needs to be prioritized and executed for sure even when other communication features are in operation. We were able to achieve both improved performance and quality by designing a module to allow the process to be reused for the similar functions and products.
PROJECT STORY.04
Robustness to withstand an extreme shock from an unexpected fall
In addition to the pursuit of "portability", our developers had another challenge. It is the robustness of the teaching pendant that our customer pointed out requesting "a robot needs to be unbreakable even if it is dropped from the controller."
Under the premise that a common scenario of dropping the product by accident would occur from a hip position, majority of the people in the office think the product should be acceptable so long as it is durable when dropped from 1.0m high. As a result of our re-investigation to understand the robot maker's request, however, we found out that the actual drop occurred many times when workers left the teaching pendant on top of the robot controller and neglected to return it to its original position when they went away to take a break, etc. So it revealed the robustness requires a durability to remain unbroken when it is dropped from 1.5m high (Needless to say, the robot maker suggests to return it to its original position at all times).
It was another tough request to accommodate the conflicting needs to turn the product to be "lightweight but durable", but we made it in the end by modifying its mold after revised its form and the chassis resin material.
PROJECT STORY.05
The Future of HG1P Programmable Display (Handy Type)
In fact, it was the product planner who admittedly mentioned there is so much for HG1P Programmable Handy Display to evolve. "From now on, we will further improve its useability, fuse it together with our HMI products including joystick, and strive to offer more intuitive and easy to use user interface."
We, the employees, work hard every day having faith in the further growth of HG1P with well-engineered IDEC HMI technology will bring safety and future success to worldwide production sites.
