ACE (815506)

  https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/815506

  Horizon 2020 (2014-2020)

  Autonomous Cable assembly Enabler

  SME instrument (EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020)

  manufacturing engineering  ·  computer vision  ·  productivity  ·  robotics  ·  laser physics

  2018-05-01 Start Date (YY-MM-DD)

  2018-08-31 End Date (YY-MM-DD)

  € 71,429 Total Cost

  Description

Cables are at the heart of electronic equipment that serves the medical, marine, aerospace, communications and automotive industries. The assembly of electrical cables is primarily based on human workmanship - however, manual assembly of cables is a delicate art that increases product cost, reduces quality as well as increases supply chain lines and cost. As a means to increase profitability, cable manufacturers from Europe have relocated their production facilities to low cost labour regions like North Africa, Mexico and China. Because of technological advances and statutory regulations as defined by IPC/WHMA-A-620 standards, it no longer viable to continue with manual assembly. There is an imminent need to develop machines that allow to automate the assembly to meet the standards requirements. As Frisimos, we have developed a evolutionary automated robotic assembly machines that will disrupt the electric cable assembly industry. The project idea is composed of three modules that can work as standalone machines or together forming a process line. The Layer Removal machine that enables cutting of metal with almost no heat, and to separately cut each layer with precise profile, is based on Laser ablation process, which uses specific wavelength and additional parameters. The Wire Sort machine that allows sorting cable wires according to their color or lettering, is based on a machine vision based algorithm. The Wire soldering machine welds the cable by laser, using a laser beam, which allows controlling the soldered spot size and the power, so creating the most optimal soldering. We will specifically concentrate on the automotive and communications market segments. The targeted market potential for our solution will grow from €12.29b in 2017 to €19b by 2022. We anticipate that ACE will help grow our turnover to €35.45m with a cumulative profit of €50m within the first 5-years of commercialisation.

  Complicit Organisations

1 Israeli organisation participates in ACE.