Automation of Glue Deposition on Shoe Uppers by Means of Industrial Robots and Force Control

This paper deals with the engineering of the process for the deposition of glue on a shoe upper, carried out by means of an Industrial Robot. The adhesive exploited is specifically developed for filament extrusion systems, and has to wet the shoe upper surface in order to guarantee a stable and durable bond. To achieve this target, a proper contact force between the extruder and the shoe upper has to be maintained during the extrusion process. The paper proposes an automatic deposition procedure, based on a feedback force control: the extrusion system, mounted on the robot, follows a tentative trajectory defined offline by means of a CAM software, trajectory which is adjusted online by imposing a reference force along the normal direction of the path. In the paper the focus is put on the path generation based on CAD model, on the robotic cell layout and control, and on the experimental results validating the process of glue deposition.