Project based at
Lead Partner Organisation
Cobotic-assisted exploration into soldering and inspection of wire barbs for stent graft manufacture
Project Start date:
22nd August 2022
Expected end date:
7th April 2023
What’s this project about?
This is an exploratory project that aims to provide insights on how cobotic systems can assist with the process of soldering and inspection of barbs attached wires when manufacturing stent grafts.
This process will include the iterative design of a robotic jig that assists with placement and fixture to support soldering and related processes (such as flux application and cutting) as well as an exploratory study into vision-based inspection and soldering of barb joints.
The project team will study the current workflow of the stent graft manufacturing and, in conjunction with the prototyping, focus on human-robot interaction tasks, including placement of wires, human adjustments, and handover routines.
Their aim is to deliver a proof of concept to indicate the feasibility of integrating a cobotic system into the current stent graft manufacturing to explore effective production optimisation and human-robot workflows.
Expected Outcomes
This work project is still in progress. The expected outcomes are:
- An understanding of the workflow of stent graft manufacturing, based on a contextual inquiry. This will aid the design and development of cobotic systems into this area of manufacturing.
- A proof of concept of a cobotic-assisted jig for the exploratory soldering and inspection of wire barbs.
- An evaluation report of effectiveness, applicability, and integration with human-robot interaction routines.
- Document compliance and QA needs for future process implementations.
Project Team
Project Team Centre CI’s:
Markus Rittenbruch, QUT
Jared Donovan, QUT
Anjali Tumkur Jaiprakash, QUT
Postdoctoral Research Fellow:
Stine S. Johansen, QUT
REF team:
Dasun Gunasinghe, REF team, QUT
Steve Martin, REF team, QUT
James Mount, REF team, QUT
Andy Keir, REF team, QUT
Other associated researchers:
Yu Kao, QUT
Partner Investigators:
Gareth Keen, Cook Medical
Rashaad Lambat, Cook Medical
Joshua Griffin, Cook Medical