Robotic Work Cell Test Bed to Support Measurement Science for Monitoring, Diagnostics, and Prognostics

Industrial robotics users, integrators, and manufacturers are implementing advanced monitoring, diagnostics, and prognostics (collectively known as Prognostics and Health Management (PHM)) techniques and technologies. PHM can take many different forms when implemented, and measures of effectiveness are highly dependent on the techniques implemented. A test bed has been built, and a use case designed, to represent common manufacturing tasks performed in robot work cells where PHM can provide greater equipment and process health intelligence. The physical and functional relationships within the work cell are mapped using a hierarchical deconstruction method to gain a better understanding of the propagation of effects of both equipment and process degradation. The test bed has been built so PHM techniques and technologies can be integrated and tested in a realistic scenario. Data is recorded for post processing and analysis for the verification and validation (V&V) of the implemented PHM techniques. The test bed will serve as a platform to develop, test, verify, and validate PHM techniques at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and provide industry participants a standard platform for testing their PHM technologies. Having a common testing platform will provide industry a foundation for sets of tests to evaluate PHM. This paper presents the test bed and use case, the relationships therein, and the data management and collection approaches used to enable future research.