Nissan Motor Company Limited

Tatsuo Miyauchi

Yoshitada Sekine

Kazuyoshi Abe

Susumu Kawada

Hiroyuki Ono

Tohru Nishiyama

Satoshi Uemura

In a flexible manufacturing system for assembling various types of vehicle bodies, there is employed a work piece carrier on which a work piece positioning device is mounted. The work piece positioning device has a plurality of position changeable work piece holders which are grouped into a plurality of groups each having its own power input device. When the carrier comes to a type switching stage together with the work piece positioning device, a power source installed in the type switching stage is brought into connection with the power input device of one of the groups thereby to changing the positions of the corresponding work piece holders. Then, the power source is brought into connection with the other power input device of the other group to change the positions of the corresponding work piece holders.

Method and apparatus for assembling vehicle body

In a flexible manufacturing system for assembling various types of vehicle bodies, there is employed a work piece carrier on which a work piece positioning device is mounted. The work piece positioning device has a plurality of position changeable work piece holders which are grouped into a plurality of groups each having its own power input device. When the carrier comes to a type switching state together with the work piece positioning device, a power source installed in the type switching stage is brought into connection with the power input device of one of the groups thereby to change the positions of the corresponding work piece holders. Then, the power source is brought into connection with the other power input device of the other group to change the positions of the corresponding work piece holders.

In order to facilitate rapid automatic set up and adjustment of a robotic assembly arrangement in a manner which produces the required precision, pre-recorded data and expert system software are teamed together and used to set robotic support jigs and move panels into position against the body they are to be attached to. The position of the panels is determined using a laser scanning technique and feedback control used to adjust the robots and associated hardware and move the panel or panels in the case there is a deviation beyond acceptable tolerances in a manner which either reduces or eliminates the deviation.

Vehicle assembly method and apparatus

A vehicle body is assembled in a number of stages each including robots which are automatically adjusted to move and secure work pieces such as panels to a basic body member or chasis. One of the stages includes a measuring arrangement which scans the assembled unit with laser beams to determine if the required tolerance have been set. In the event of deviations beyond permissible limits the appropriate correction is derived and fed back to the stage wherein the securing operation in question occured.

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Utsunomiya, Japan

Tatsuo Miyauchi