Progetto e Sviluppo di Robot per Ambienti Asettici

Abstract

The world of aseptic industry - mainly constituted by pharmaceutical, food & beverage, and microelectronics process plants - is experiencing unprecedented development due to the pervasive integration of Industry 4.0 paradigms. In this context, the progressive transition to automated manufacturing is characterized by a dual aim: increase of output yield and achievement of superior product sterility. This rapid evolution is currently played in a delicate equilibrium scenario, characterized by the interaction of human and machinery activity. While the former is being progressively discouraged - as one of main sources of contamination -, the expansion of automation is still restrained by the presence of stringent regulations and challenging sterilization treatments.

Robotics is only beginning to tackle with this emerging application field. To date, available commercial solutions are derivated from general-purpose counter-parts through a certain extent of modifications; thus, respective offer of well-established mechanical features generally overwhelms more critical hygienic requirements. The motivation of this work is hence rooted on the development of a custom robot architecture that is completely devoted to aseptic industry needs; the devised solution is intended to reside in sterile workplaces, withstand the harsh sterilization cycles of surrounding environment and prevent inflow leakage from pressurized liquid jets. To this purpose, the thesis first explores the vast world of aseptic manufacturing and provides a comprehensive overview of related requirements, best-practice design processes, legislative regulations, decontamination treatments, and state-of-art commercial robotics offer. The core of the work consists in a step-by-step presentation of the aseptic robot development. Starting from the comparative analysis of a number of potential concepts and the kinematic modeling of 6-DOF articulated manipulators, the work addresses the following issues: design of highly-integrated modular drives, selection of appropriate arm geometries and materials, integration of electronics, development of dedicated aseptic junction and sealing solutions, realization of a lightweight multitask end-effector. Finally, the work is complemented by the realization of a custom real-time multibody simulator, which serves as a virtual test bench for proposed mechanical design, and the documented manufacturing of a drive preliminary prototype.