TORONTO: It was all about fabricating at the first FABTECH Canada show held at the Toronto Congress Centre March 20-22 and the KUKA Robotics Canada booth showed attendees what robotic teamwork looks like.

The Mississauga, Ont. company, a subsidiary of KUKA Roboter GmbH (one of the world’s largest robot manufacturers), teamed a KR210 handling robot with KR 5 HW, KR 16 HW and a KR 16 L8 welding robots to demonstrate the RoboTeam software, which delivers cooperative interaction.

One teach pendant controls all the robots as they simulated welding of a metal part, with 24 axes controlled from one point. The synchronized motion allows the team to handle tasks rather than changing positions for each and avoid collisions.

With multiple (up to 15) robots acting as one, Kuka says a manufacturer can create new plant and cell layouts with shorter production lines and simpler installations multiply the payload capacity of standard robots. Or workpieces can be processed during transfer to the next assembly station, thus reducing non-productive transfer time.

Each robot keeps its standard controller connected to a high-speed local network (ethernet) allowing them to communicate with one another and synchronize. The RoboTeam groups are programmed using inline forms that contain all the command parameters, which avoids incorrect entries.

End result: four arms operating as one.

Fabtech Canada, presented by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), The American Welding Society (AWS) and the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association International (FMA) was expecting more than 5,000 attendees see 225 exhibitors.