An application of robotic cable harness bundling

Cable harnesses are used in various equipment including automobiles, airplanes, locomotives and computers. In the Cable Harness Design and Assembly System, cables are designed at a CAD workstation and the cable harness is built by a remote robot. This paper covers the bundling subsystem of the Cable Harness Design and Assembly System. This involved both hardware and software development. The hardware consists of the interface of the bundling tool to the robot controller and the circuitry for driving an optical sensor located at the end of the bundling tool for monitoring the cable height. The software developed consists of several programs, for processing the information coming from the CAD database and driving the manipulator through the process. The bundling subsystem relies on feedback from the sensor at the manipulator end effector for adapting to minor errors and for temporary suspension of the process when non-recoverable errors occur.