ABB Robots and Wire Harness Assembly, 1942 to Now

Wire harnesses are still built by hand. Hyundai Mobis is testing robots that plug them in, and ABB force control and YuMi show how robots could handle cables.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/25/20261 min read

In October 1942, Alfred Palmer photographed a woman working on electrical wiring at Douglas Aircraft in Long Beach, California. Every wire in a warplane was cut, routed, tied into bundles and tested by hand, and the work took patient people with good eyes and steady fingers.

Woman in a striped blouse soldering wires at a workbench with test meters
Woman in a striped blouse soldering wires at a workbench with test meters

Working on electrical wiring at Douglas Aircraft, Long Beach, California, October 1942. Photo: Alfred T. Palmer / Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Eighty years on, cars, washing machines and robots are full of wire harnesses, the bundles of cables that carry power and signals, and building them is still one of the most manual jobs in electronics. Wires bend and twist, so a robot never finds them in the same place twice.

Wires tied together with lacing cord running around a round metal component
Wires tied together with lacing cord running around a round metal component

Hand-laced cable bundle inside an old piece of equipment. Photo: impulselabs / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

This week Automotive Manufacturing Solutions reported on a Hyundai Mobis pilot at its Ulsan plant. Six-axis industrial robots with 3D vision find a harness connector and plug it into an EV battery module, a job done only by hand until now, with tolerances around 0.1 mm.

Colorful bundle of wires ending in a white connector on a green circuit board
Colorful bundle of wires ending in a white connector on a green circuit board

A cable harness plugged into a circuit board in a Revox B215 tape deck. Photo: Retired electrician / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

ABB already sells the pieces for this kind of work. Its Integrated Force Control lets a robot feel how hard it is pushing, so it can seat a connector without crushing it. ABB's Dynamic Assembly Pack combines cameras and force sensing to fit parts onto car bodies as they move down the line.

ABB robot reaching into a white car body on an assembly line
ABB robot reaching into a white car body on an assembly line

ABB robots use force control to fit parts on a car assembly line. Photo: ABB

Small wiring jobs suit the dual-arm YuMi, which ABB built for small-part assembly next to people: one arm can hold a cable while the other pushes the plug home. At ABB's Smart Power factory in Vaasa, Finland, a line of 20 ABB robots already assembles switchgear components.

Two armed ABB YuMi robot sorting small parts on a bench beside a worker in a lab coat
Two armed ABB YuMi robot sorting small parts on a bench beside a worker in a lab coat

ABB's dual-arm YuMi was designed for small-part assembly next to people. Photo: ABB

I think harnesses will be redesigned for robots, with connectors that are easier to see and grab, and AMS covered that kind of robot-ready design earlier this month. Home robots will need these cable bundles by the million, so whoever builds them will want robots that can handle wire.

ABB robot gripper above a bowl feeder and red parts bin inside an assembly cell
ABB robot gripper above a bowl feeder and red parts bin inside an assembly cell

An ABB robot picking parts in a switchgear assembly cell. Photo: ABB

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