DIGITAL TWIN AND VIRTUAL REALITY FOR PROCESS VERIFICATION OF RESISTANCE SPOT WELDS IN AUTOMOTIVE BODY IN WHITE MANUFACTURING

Automotive body-in- white (BIW) manufacturing facilities utilize human inspectors to manually validate the quality of resistance spot welds (RSW). The process usually involves an articulated robotic arm that holds the component being inspected at its end effector, and presents the component to the human inspector. During the inspection process, the robot re-orientates the component for each weld location to make the inspection easier for the human inspector. Due to the complexity of human-robot interaction, several trials are made before a robot system is ready for serial production. Conventionally, robot coding, process validation, human ergonomic assessment and safety validations are performed once the robot has been commissioned at the production floor. To reduce the time required for document development and ensure complete visibility of all applied resistance spot welds, a digital twin was implemented. The digital twin also combines a digital human mannequin for validation. Utilizing Process Simulate software, the weld locations were highlighted and presented to the inspector in virtual reality (VR) and added to the quality control plan documents. Once robot placement was verified, the joint coordinates were downloaded to the offline program, for implementation; resulting in decreased programming time and inspection documentation development.