استفاده از کابل سیم پیچی شده و روبات های صنعتی به منظور تسهیل در تولید ماشین های الکتریکی

Cable wound electric machines are used mainly for high voltage and direct-drive applications. They can be found in areas such as wind power, hydropower, wave power and high-voltage motors. Compared to conventional winding techniques, cable winding includes fewer manufacturing steps and is therefore likely to be better suited for automated production. Automation of the cable winding production step is a crucial task in order to lower the manufacturing costs of these machines. This article presents a production method using industrial robots for automation of cable winding of electric machine stators. The concept presented is validated through computer simulations and full-scale winding experiments, including a constructed robot-held cable feeder tool prototype. A cable wound linear stator section of an Uppsala University Wave Energy Converter and its winding process is used as a reference in this article. From this example, it is shown that considerable production cycle time and manufacturing cost savings can be anticipated compared to manual winding. The suggested automation method is very flexible. It can be used for the production of cable wound stators with different shapes and sizes, for different cable dimensions and with different winding patterns.

Fully automated manufacturing of conventional electric machines, both motors and generators, is well known today and has been globally introduced in factories for a few decades [1], [2], [3], [4] and [5]. It has been widely recognized that automated production lines are necessary to survive in today's global electric machine market [6], [7] and [8]. Designing with production in mind has been an important key in the process towards automation of electric machine manufacturing [2], [5] and [9]. One of the most challenging operations to automate in electric machine manufacturing is the winding of the stator. For conventional machines using coils of inductor wire or rectangular inductor bars, different automated winding methods have been developed. A less common electric generator design, known as the Powerformer, utilizes cables for the stator winding. This concept has some important advantages, including reduced system losses and fewer winding production steps [10], [11], [12], [13], [14] and [15]. However, no published fully developed automated cable winding production method has been found.

Using cable winding technology in electric machine stators is likely to facilitate automated production compared to using conventional winding techniques. Production steps such as pre-insertion of insulation in the stator slots, possible insertion of pre-wound coils into the stator slots and winding fixation are eliminated and the need for connecting end windings is reduced compared to conventional windings. Apart from the electrical benefits of cable wound machines, the concept is also suitable for automated production. Previous research indicates that automated stator winding in production is an important but at the same time complex field. Automation methods for stator winding of conventional electric machines have been developed and implemented in production lines for many years. However, since cable wound stators are not very common today, a published method to automate cable winding has not been found. Advances in robot technology, together with high flexibility demands, make industrial robots suitable for implementation in a solution to this problem. Existing winding automation methods for conventional stator winding cannot be used for cable winding automation.