Industrial robots play an important role in automotive production, especially with the rapid development of the automotive industry. Industrial robots are able to move independently and are widely used in different production processes, which are often equipped with manipulators, tools and other production tools that facilitate assembly. It is convenient and fast to carry out production, and at the same time can replace the work in low temperature, high temperature, toxic and other harsh environments, and replace people to complete the heavy, monotonous and repetitive production, which ensures the quality of products and improves the production efficiency. 

Main applications of robots 

    Usually, industrial robots play the role of assemblers, operators and welders in automotive production, and the main applications are welding, gluing, arc welding, spraying, etc. The main characteristics of robots are as follows. 

    1) The ability to replace human production in harsh environments, especially in dangerous military and nuclear industry work, reducing safety hazards, for example, inspection and maintenance robots in nuclear industry production equipment. 

    (2) Robots used in human exploration of unknown fields or industries where only robots can work, for example, manipulator arms used in space satellite recovery and marine salvage robots for deep-sea mining and salvage. 

    (3) Robots used in automated production are mainly in machine tools, downcasting, spot welding and painting, and have a significant impact in electrical vehicle manufacturing. 

    4) Save manpower and improve the competitiveness of the enterprise market, in the production can ensure the accuracy, reliability and consistency of the product. 

The application in automotive production is reflected in the following points. 

    1) Welding robots. Spot welding robots are mainly responsible for spot welding operations in automobile production, mostly used in welding thin plate parts of the body, according to statistics, a car body has about 3000-4000 welding joints. According to statistics, there are about 3,000-4,000 welding points in a car body. 60% of them are responsible for spot welding robots, especially in high-volume car production lines, the number of spot welding robots used can reach more than 150. Manual welding is very harmful to the staff and does not guarantee the quality of welding. Robot work performance is reflected in the small installation area and large working space, which can achieve multi-point positioning with small pitch while ensuring high positioning accuracy (±0.25 mm), and the holding force can reach 490-980 N. The teaching is simple, while ensuring the quality of welding nodes. 

    2) Arc welding robots. Most of the arc welding robots are used in the welding process at the continuous union of multiple metals, which can complete automatic wire feeding, melt electrodes and can weld under gas protection conditions, and its application is wide, meanwhile, the arc welding robots should include the welding compound device system. 

    The production performance requirements of the arc welding robot are mainly reflected in the weld path movement when the welding torch is tracking, to continuously fill the metal to form the weld path, and also to ensure the speed trajectory and stability during the movement. Usually the welding speed range is 5-50 mm/s, and the trajectory is about ± (0.2 to 0.5) mm. In order to reduce the impact of the welding gun posture on the quality of the weld seam, the adjustable range of the welding gun should be expanded. 

    3) Assembly robot. According to statistics, the amount of assembly labor in the production of products accounted for 50%-60% of the proportion of labor, in the strict requirements of the production plant requirements are higher, more can reach 70%-80%, especially modern cars have higher and higher requirements for the accuracy and speed of parts, from small to doors, dashboards, lights, etc., large to car engines and other assembly work, robots can be competent, while compared to the general robot At the same time, compared with general robots, assembly robots have high precision, good flexibility, small working space, and can be used in conjunction with other related systems or equipment, which greatly improves the assembly efficiency. The use of assembly robots to complete automated assembly has become inevitable. 

    (4) Paint robot. Painting robots mainly complete the painting of the outer surface of the car body, home appliances and plastic products used in automobiles, which affects the overall effect of the car. Painting robots in the use of the environment and action requirements are: ① work environment contains flammable and explosive spray paint vapor; ② in the high-speed running point along the track will be the operating point; ③ most of the painting robots are carried on the conveyor belt to achieve mobile spray paint. 

    The application of robots in automotive production in addition to the above points, there are handling robots, gluing robots, liquid substance filling plus robots, etc. Related data show that the proportion of robots in different production processes in automotive production varies: 16% for arc welding, 13% for material handling, 15% for spot welding, 22% for assembly, 3% for painting, stamping, and casting, and about 15% for loading and unloading, polishing and grinding, and testing. This shows the importance of robots in automotive production.