Tolerance dataset: mating process of plug-in cable connectors for wire harness assembly tasks

In this research, we studied the mating tolerance of various plug-in cable connectors and provide a mating tolerance dataset of 70 different connectors. This dataset will be highly advantageous to industries for wire harness assembly tasks using robots. Understanding the mating tolerance is crucial for automating the mating process because it is closely related to the control specifications of a robotic manipulator. Our system uses a 2-finger Robotiq adaptive gripper attached to a 6 degree-of-freedom industrial robot (ABB Robotics) to test the mating process of wire harness assembly tasks. In addition, we use 70 types of wire harness connectors with different numbers of pins widths, lengths, and thicknesses, and various shapes, to test the mating tolerance. The results indicate that the connector mating tolerance of our dataset is more generous than the repeatability of conventional industrial manipulators, and further demonstrate the suitability of the position control methods to wire harness assembly tasks.