Bastiaan Wolters | Dave Vermeulen | Jake Lam | Ruben van Dongen
TNO ANNOUNCES SCALE-UP OF OPTICAL GRADE MIRROR PRODUCTION IN COLLABORATION WITH OP-SYSTEMS.
TNO has confirmed its collaboration with OP systems to automate part of TNO’s mirror manufacturing process by way of the OPS-1.
The OPS-1 is designed to accelerate the manufacturing process of optical grade mirrors by automating the fixations of the mirrors onto a chuck for diamond turning. This system allows for the manufacturing of a greater quantity of optical grade mirrors, which leads to the ability to manufacture greater quantities of optical instruments for satellites.
The current process of manufacturing, which is mostly done by hand, Is slow due to tight tolerances. TNO hopes to speed up the process by making sure multiple chucks can be prepared so that the output of turned mirrors can be scaled up.
Automation is enabled through the application of a robot arm and machine vision. The machine vision detects the orientation and location of the mounting blocks and sends that information to the robot arm. The robot arm picks up the mounting blocks through pneumatic suction and moves the mounting blocks to a glue station. After glueing the mounting blocks they are placed on a interface plate and maneuvered to the mirrors.
By automating the process of fixating the mirrors to the interface plate a bottleneck in the manufacturing process is lessened enabling greater quantities of production.
Dave Vermeulen: Working on this scale and these tight tolerances are quite a challenge and we as Orbital precision systems are very proud of the result delivered. The current system is a very good concept and there is lots to be improved. Yet this is only the start of exciting new oppertunities
TNO: We are very satisfied , we now have a proof of concept to show our industry partners.
For more information go to robotexchange.io/t/bonding-of-mirrors TNOn