STEP Robotics empowers rail transit by providing efficient, intelligent, and flexible solutions.
2023-04-28
The Xining-Chengdu high-speed railway is an integral part of the Lan(Xi)-Guangzhou corridor—the Lanzhou-Xining to Guangzhou route—within China’s “Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal” high-speed rail network. The line spans across the three provinces and autonomous regions of Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan. Sixty percent of the railway’s route lies at an altitude of over 3,000 meters, making construction extremely challenging. In particular, tunnel construction involves prolonged exposure to altitude sickness and significant temperature differences between day and night, posing enormous challenges to both manual labor and transportation operations.
Leveraging its advantages across the entire industry chain and extensive experience in welding applications, STEP Robotics provides an efficient, intelligent, and flexible arch support production solution for tunnel construction on the Xi'an-Chengdu High-Speed Railway, thereby supporting China’s leapfrog development in rail transit.
Image source: Public media
Two-machine collaboration for efficient production
Production process flow
√ H-shaped steel is automatically conveyed via rails to the arching machine for arching processing.
√ After the arch frame is formed, the workpiece dimensions are determined using laser recognition technology, and then the robot performs the cutting.
√ The welding robot uses 3D vision to determine the shape and position of the workpiece, then transmits this information via Ethernet to the handling robot for assembly.
√ After assembly is complete, the welding robot will perform overall positioning of the welded workpiece and then proceed to weld the key areas of the workpiece.
STEP master-slave control technology enables welding robots and handling robots to collaborate and work together efficiently in production. Meanwhile, the adoption of a dual-robot and dual-station design doubles productivity. The dual-platform shaping template design effectively ensures welding accuracy and processing efficiency, enabling cyclic processing.
Adaptive flexible welding, with reliable and consistent quality.
Using visual sensing, the welding workspace is reconstructed, and the workpiece position is identified. The welding robot then precisely moves to the initial welding position. The STEP welding robot SA6/1400, with a payload of 6 kg and a working radius of 1400 mm, is perfectly suited for standard arc welding tasks. The streamlined design of the robot’s wrist ensures that the robot has a minimally invasive profile and maximum freedom of movement. During the welding process, real-time detection and pre-processing are performed; while correcting the robot’s motion trajectory online, the system automatically adjusts the welding process parameters as well. The positioning accuracy is improved by 20% compared to traditional contact-based and line-laser-based positioning methods, and it can also accommodate workpieces with deviations exceeding 100 mm. Ensure consistent and highly reliable weld bead formation and welding quality.
Crack the labor shortage and achieve the fastest delivery.
There is an increasingly growing shortage of operational and technical personnel for the production of H-shaped steel arch supports for tunnels, and the STEP intelligent welding system clearly demonstrates its advantages over traditional arch support welding methods.
√ Highly flexible intelligent welding realized through the use of robots as carriers, replacing manual labor.
√ Compared to manual work, it offers higher work efficiency and more reliable welding quality.
√ All locations are generated visually, and the entire system can be quickly put into operation.
Customer Voice
“Due to the project’s remote location and harsh environment, it’s very difficult to recruit workers.” STEP Robotics’ high-quality products and services have put our minds at ease. The robots offer exceptional stability and 24-hour rapid response support. “It provides us with stable and timely delivery capabilities, which is precisely why we ultimately chose STEP,” said the project leader.
As a pioneer in robotic welding applications, STEP has achieved a leading position in numerous niche markets. This time, thanks to the technological advantages of its 3D vision-guided intelligent welding system, STEP’ robots have significantly expanded the application boundaries of welding robots, meeting the new demands for intelligent welding in the rail transit industry.
In the future, STEP will continue to collaborate with its partners to overcome more challenges in specialized industries, develop even more competitive welding solutions, empower our partners, and jointly promote the advancement and growth of China’s robotic welding industry.
Contact Us
Email:
market@stepelectric.com
Address:
No. 1560, Siyi Road, Jiading District, Shanghai Municipality