This short paper outlines new hardware and software technologies and methods being developed for automated assembly of precision high-value products such as magnetic storage devices, palmtop and wearable computers and other high-density equipment. Our Agile Assembly Architecture (AAA) supports the creation of miniature assembly factories (minifactories) built from small modular robotic componen...

Through controlled synthesis and molecular assembly, biological systems are able to organize molecules into supramolecular structures that carry out sophisticated processes. Although chemists have reported a few examples of supramolecular assembly in water, the controlled covalent synthesis of large molecules and structures in vivo has remained challenging. Here we report a condensation reactio...

Automobile sector forms the backbone of manufacturing sector. Vehicle assembly line is important section in automobile plant where repetitive tasks are performed one after another at different workstations. In this thesis, a methodology is proposed to reduce cycle time and time loss due to important factors like equipment failure, shortage of inventory, absenteeism, set-up, material handling, r...

This paper describes the results of an experimental study conducted to investigate the effects of assembly of a product on operator performance. A fully adjustable ergonomically designed assembly workstation (smart workstation) was used for the experiment. Ten college students (five boys group and five girls group) randomly assigned into three experimental conditions (table adjustable, chair ad...

Purpose: Justify the capability to obtain feasible assembly sequences through an automatic approach based only on contact and interference information between components of a mechanical discrete product, independently of adopted virtual modelling techniques and human intervention. Analysis of assembly information available at early stages of design in virtual model of a product in order to iden...

Virtual reality (VR) has the potential to substantially alter the manner in which products of the future are engineered. Currently there are many applications of VR during the product engineering process from design and analysis through to process planning, assembly, machining and shop floor layout. VR takes a multitude of forms, including immersive, desktop, augmented, and is rapidly developin...

An agile workcell has been developed for light mechanical assembly in collaboration with industrial sponsors. The workcell includes multiple Adept robots, a Bosch conveyor system, multiple flexible parts feeders at each robot’s workstation, CCD cameras for parts feeding and hardware registration, and a dual VMEbus control system. Our flexible parts feeder design uses multiple conveyors to singu...

Charge detection mass spectrometry (CDMS) is a single-molecule technique particularly well-suited to measuring the mass and charge distributions of heterogeneous, MDa-sized ions. In this work, CDMS has been used to analyze the assembly products of two coat protein variants of bacteriophage P22. The assembly products show broad mass distributions extending from 5 to 15 MDa for A285Y and 5 to 25 ...

We have studied the processes leading to the cementation of colloidal particles during their autonomous assembly on corroding copper electrodes within a Cu-Au galvanic microreactor. We determined the onset of particle immobilization through particle tracking, monitored the dissolution of copper as well as the deposition of insoluble products of the corrosion reactions in situ, and showed that p...

A central theme in nanotechnology is to advance the fundamental understanding of nanoscale component assembly, thereby allowing rational structural design that may lead to materials with novel properties and functions. Nanoparticles (NPs) are often regarded as 'artificial atoms', but their 'reactions' are not readily controllable. Here, we demonstrate a complete nanoreaction system whereby coll...