Development of an automated system for the soldering of USB cables

Large demand for soldering multi-wire cables (e.g., USB cables, earphone cables, etc.) is reflected in the rapidly expanding 3C industry (i.e., Computer, Communication and Consumer electronics). Currently, several pre-processing steps need to be first carried out: separating → sorting → pressing. These steps are challenging for the robot, mainly because of the deformable nature, small size, and couplings between multiple wires. As such, existing solutions are entirely manual. In this paper, a new automated system for the soldering of multi-wire cable is proposed, in which the whole procedure, including all the pre-processing steps, is fully automated. The key novelty is the development of a series of new mechanical modules that are able to disentangle multiple wires then manipulate them into the structured configuration, laying the foundation for the subsequent soldering operation. The transition between multiple modules is automatically achieved using a deep vision network to guarantee high accuracy (i.e., <1mm) under different levels of illumination and/or cluttered backgrounds. Moreover, an optimization scheme has been proposed for wire sorting to shorten the operation time and improve mass production efficiency. Experimental results show that the speed of manufacturing is around 112 pics/hr and the success rate for each module is above 93%, thereby proving the feasibility of the developed robot.