Robotic Wires Manipulation for Switchgear Cabling and Wiring Harness Manufacturing

This paper describes a cyber-physical system for a wiring operations, composed by a robotic manipulator and a gripper with tactile sensors. This system can be used for switchgear cabling and manufacturing of wiring harnesses. The manipulation of electrical wires, and more in general deformable linear objects, is a complex task of large interest for different industrial applications. The proposed system is designed to shape a cable along a desired path including fixing points and obstacles exploited to shape the cable itself. To accomplish this goal, the wire position needs to be determined starting from a list of point and then converted in a joint reference pose for the manipulator to reproduce the desired trajectory. Moreover, the wire tension must be controlled on the basis of both the estimation of the robot external wrench and the tactile data by acting on the gripper finger opening. An experimental setup in which a cable must be routed along two linear paths connected by a turn and with four fixing points has been used to validate the proposed solution.