Using battery powered tools in your assembly?

An increasing number of automakers and other manufacturers are making the transition from cable tools to battery powered tools in order to gain the flexibility of cordless tools. The challenge of using battery tools is that they are not physically coupled to a specific station and can be moved around in the plant. Mistakes can happen and the wrong tools can be used on the wrong product in your line, leading to downtime and frustration.

We have been aware of this problem for some time and introduced an effective tool-location solution in 2019. The solution, called Industrial Location Tethering, or ILT, provides a virtual cable that replaces the tool cable while still tying tools to a specific station or area.

Building on ILT, Industrial Location for Moving Lines (ILM) is the latest development and addition to our Workstation Solutions portfolio. It covers a complete production line or parts of a line and even enables you to define smaller areas within the station. In addition to the ILT, the ILM is also built to work with moving lines, like those in the automobile manufacturing sector.

As ILM does not require a server, it is relatively easy to install and set up. You can start with one or multiple stations, and then extend the system as required. The ILM system comprises ILM Anchors and ILM Tags and, depending on your needs, you can work in two different working modes (Basic and Managed) using the same hardware.

Each ILM Anchor functions as a reference point for ultra-wideband-radio localization. It uses 24 V power or power via an Ethernet cable (PoE). If required, it can be connected to external systems via your factory network.  

ILM Tags take their power directly from the tool. A status LED indicates when the tool is in an “enabled” area. For easy integration, direct tool communication is possible by making the tool tag simulate a second-start-trigger. No software interfaces are required and the system can also be connected directly via Open Protocol.

The tags and anchors communicate with each other via UWB radio technology, which will not interfere with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in your plant.

Basic mode is a plug-and-play solution requiring minimal installation effort. It is not necessary to measure the infrastructure, no anchor configuration is needed, and no additional data or timing cables are required. It is simply a case of configuring the tags and plugging in the 24 V power supply. 

With the ILM using Basic mode, you can make sure that the tool only operates in the right area, and you can for example distinguish between the right and left side of your line. Accuracy in Basic mode is 20-50 cm and, thanks to tool orientation detection, the ILM can in some cases also ensure that the correct joint is tightened. 

Basic mode is based on distance measurement and uses multiple anchors. You put the anchors in place and “teach” each tool tag the distance it should be from the anchors to be enabled, using the ILM web interface.

Simply place the tool where you need it to be and press the “Teach” function. Up to 8 areas can be defined, to cover the side of a car, for example. For line rebalancing, reteaching, and reconfiguring the tool tags for different variants or for a new line can be done quickly and easily. 

For more accurate tool ‘enabled’ and ‘disabled’ areas, the solution can be extended to Managed mode, which gives up to 10 cm accuracy. Here the location system can send the position and orientation of the tool (XYZ coordinates) to a Master PC or server interface. 

Managed mode offers the same easy installation as the Basic mode, with the addition of measuring the ILM Anchor position. All data and tool controller interfaces are the same as for the Basic mode.

The ILM system is upgradable from Basic mode to Managed mode. With the Managed mode you can have real time visualization of the tag position on a PC or server, making ILM an efficient tool tracking solution for moving production lines.