Automated Assembly Equipment for Automatic Wire-Board Loading Cell with Vision-Guided Pick and Place

Project scope

We designed an automatic electronics sensor wire-board loading cell that lets operators feed empty wire boards and wire harnesses into separate magazines, then uses automated handling, vision-guided pickup, tape application, alignment and discharge to complete the board arrangement process. That makes the scope an automated assembly equipment application for wire-board loading and harness arrangement.

The machine is built as a dedicated solution for one board layout rather than a universal platform. The technical requirement defines a 13 mm board-center interval, and the test product description states that each wire board can hold 40 wire harnesses, with every 2 pieces placed into one slot.

Coordinating board and harness feeding

The cell has to synchronize two material streams: empty wire boards and loose wire harnesses. The board side needs magazine feeding, board pickup, transfer into the receiving assembly and later discharge. The harness side needs rotary feeding, vibration-assisted feeding and a two-layer belt path with return capability.

Vision-guided placement and NG handling

The process depends on wire-harness orientation. If the harness posture is not suitable for placement, the flow sends it through a lower return line and periodically into an NG box. The spider-robot section therefore has to combine CCD guidance, wire gripping and placement stability rather than only basic transfer.

Main machine modules

We organized the machine around automatic board loading, automatic wire-harness loading, dual spider-robot pick-and-place, board receiving, wire alignment, tape application and arrangement discharge. The equipment package includes one control system, one display and one touch screen.

Module	Confirmed function
Automatic board-feeding module	Uses a board magazine, pickup gripper, lift slide cylinder, transverse module, ejector module and through-beam fiber detection
Automatic wire-harness feeding module	Uses rotary feeding, a vibration feeder, refill magazine, upper flat feeding belt, lower return belt and belt motor
Spider-robot module	Uses two spider robots with CCD vision and wire-gripping pneumatic claws
Board receiving module	Uses a linear-motor module, clamping cylinder, receiving tray and guard plate
Wire-aligning module	Uses aligning grippers, transverse movement, lift module, drag chain and linear guide
Tape application module	Uses tape, pressing cylinder, scissors and transverse movement
Discharge module	Uses a receiving frame, lift module, board-clamping pneumatic claw, turnover cylinder, transverse module and drag chain

Operating sequence

The station action flow starts with manual loading of the wire board and wire harness into magazines. The module moves laterally, descends and grips the board, places the board into the receiving assembly and sends the harness through rotary feeding to the upper flat belt. CCD guidance supports spider-robot pickup. After placement, the process applies tape, flips and arranges the work, places it into the wire-aligning fixture gripper, and then discharges the finished board for manual removal.

Proposed operating result

The resulting cell replaces repeated manual board arrangement with a dedicated automatic process for one board specification. The stated average efficiency target is 1,800 to 2,000 products per hour.

Product and layout constraints

The test product setup is based on boards with 40 wire harness positions. Every 2 pieces share one slot, and the center interval is 13 mm. Because the technical requirement defines the cell as dedicated-purpose, we treated compatibility as intentionally limited rather than adding unsupported multi-product claims.