Press brake tending – cobot solution

Our ecosystem of Certified System Integrators (CSIs) continue to offer a number of excting new applications and software solutions, with the latest offering from Olympus Technologies no exception.

The newly launched Universal Robot press brake tending solution offers another vital application of our technology for businesses where skilled manual resources are proving increasingly difficult to secure and retain. The solution was initially designed to integrate to the TRUMPF TruBend family of machine, although Olympus Technologies are planning to extend this to other press brake manufacturers.

The business, which has worked with Universal Robots since 2011 to provide customers with flexible automation solutions, was originally challenged by the UK division of a multi-national company to create a plug and play solution for a range of press brake machines. The result is now being offered to the wider marketplace, enabling other companies to benefit from a new form of press brake automation.

The system works via a robot mounted on a fixed column or mobile stand with a bespoke datuming infeed station, and a range of options for the outfeed depending on the finished geometry of the pressed part. Olympus Technologies has designed a modular press brake end effector, which enables the cobot to mimic the full range of movements performed by a human operator, and additional software (URCap) has been written to simplify programming.

The result is a simple and efficient manipulation which produces fast results for a wide range of parts, and an easy to re-purpose cobot that can be put to work on another tasks with ease.