ABB Robots and Humanoids in Car Final Assembly

Henry Ford's moving line at Highland Park, started in 1913, turned car building into a chain of short, repeated tasks. Chassis rolled past workers who each bolted on one part. The line brought the work to the person, but people still carried and fetched most of the parts along it.

The moving assembly line at Ford's Highland Park plant, 1913. Photo: Library of Congress (public domain)

Robots arrived first in the body shop and paint shop, where the jobs were heavy and hot, and ABB and others put thousands of arms on welding lines. Final assembly stayed mostly human. Fitting wiring, trim and seats into a half-built car takes dexterity, and on a mixed line every car can be different.

An ABB welding robot at work. Arms like this took over heavy welding long before final assembly. Photo: Ana 2016 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The work around the line is easier to automate. Parts have to arrive in the right order for each car, which plants call sequencing. ABB's Flexley Mover AMRs, such as the P604, carry carts and racks to the line using 3D visual SLAM navigation instead of floor tape, and a whole fleet is set up in ABB's AMR Studio software.

ABB's Flexley Mover P604 AMR, which navigates with 3D visual SLAM. Photo: ABB

Hyundai is betting on humanoids for the same job. According to reports on September 4, Hyundai Motor Group plans to deploy more than 25,000 Atlas humanoid robots at its plants by 2030. At its Metaplant in Savannah, Georgia, Atlas units already sort and sequence parts, and Hyundai wants to extend them to assembly by 2030.

A Hyundai car assembly line. Photo: Anonyme / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)

My guess is that different stations will end up with different robots. ABB's compact Flexley Mover P603 carries up to 1,500 kg, and ABB arms already fit windshields and mount tires on final assembly lines. A humanoid may take the awkward jobs in between.

The compact ABB Flexley Mover P603, rated for loads up to 1,500 kg. Photo: ABB

So I expect mixed lines over the next few years, with AMRs moving parts, arms doing the heavy fitting and humanoids trying the fiddly tasks. The humanoids learning to fetch parts in car plants are also the ones their makers hope to sell for homes later, which makes the factory floor their training ground.

An early Atlas humanoid built for DARPA in 2013. Today's electric Atlas is the one Hyundai plans to deploy. Photo: DARPA (public domain)

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