Teaching Industrial Robotic Applications for Smart Technologies Engineering Curriculum

The School of engineering of the University of Bergamo offers a new curriculum in Smart Technology Engineering (hereafter STE) that combines traditional aspects of mechanical engineering with additional knowledge on ICT, electronics, automation and robotics as well as on manufacturing plants design (Smart Manufacturing), building automation and human activities (Smart Living). The professional figure emerging from this course has a solid engineering and methodological basis and has an overview of advanced mechanical systems, being able to properly select and employ the new technologies in the design and management of mechanical devices and machinery, manufacturing processes, complex systems by integrating advanced technologies in the fields of electronics, controls and robotics. The syllabus of the STE curriculum is composed of several courses covering a wide range of topics belonging to different disciplines. The first-year study plan includes a set of compulsory courses while, in the second year, the students have a wide choice of elective courses dealing with different subjects that allows them to deepen their knowledge according to their preferences. Moreover, in the second semester of the second year, students, organized in small groups, have to carry out a multidisciplinary laboratory activity, and to develop a project in collaboration with industrial partners or within the University laboratories, under the supervision of a team of professors. The laboratory activities take 21 ECTS and deal with the following subjects Robotics and Industrial Machinery, Manufacturing and Production Systems, Industrial Systems Engineering and Advanced Materials. The projects proposed to the students are highly multidisciplinary, involving knowledge concerning the above mentioned subjects. In particular, the following projects have been proposed: 3D Vision System for Guidance of 6dof Manipulators, Optimization of the equipment’s usage according to the process parameters, Optimization of the hydrogen tank threading cycle, The Smart Press Brake, Digital Twin, Tridimensional Geometry and Surface Reconstruction, Study and Development of an Acoustic Camera Based on MEMS Microphones Arrays. The paper reports in details the project concerning a robotic working cell in which a 6dof articulated robot is guided by means of a 3D visual system; the final goal is to design the working cell as a whole for an automated machine or a production plant. The project isn’t focused just on the robot but on the overall working cell, that is composed of the programing environment, the 3D camera, the image processing software and the picking vacuum device. The 6dof manipulator has been programmed using both a high-level software application (WinCaps) and a low-level software tool kit (Orin2). Moreover, the robotic station has been interfaced with a discrete-event simulation software (FlexSim) widely used in automated manufactures in order to perform a comprehensive simulation of the plant where the working cell is included. In conclusion such highly multidisciplinary projects highlight that STE students attending those laboratory activities acquire high level competences and skills on the design and management of complex systems composed of different part synergically interacting each other.