HARCO Hierarchical and Adaptive smaRt COmponents for precision production systems application

Summary

HARCO will help to produce stiff, light and well damped structures with fully and deeply integrated new adaptronic devices based on electromechanical and electronic devices, measuring systems, sensors and actuators. Obtaining more intelligent and cost-effective solutions is essential for meeting performance targets in machines, and will bring enormous benefits in the design and development of machine tools. Subsequently, the basic idea is to design and develop “fractal” and “hierarchical” elements (not only mechanical hardware but also controllers and software) which can easily be assembled (plugged in) to produce higher level modules and components for active vibration control, thermal compensation and adaptive fixturing in precision machine tool applications.

The results will be illustrated through several working demonstrators, such as:

A serial robot with an active wrist which aims to boost the robot’s stiffness to allow it to perform serial robot machining tasks.
A milling machine equipped with an adaptive table and adaptive spindle which integrates one or more adaptronic active vibration control interface modules. The arrangement is completely modular and scalable to the one related to the spindle.
PKM Robots based on smart adaptive components (active struts and compact adaptronic joints) in order to drive the mobile platforms, offering a promising alternative for delivering high damping and stiffness, as well as lower weight. The active fibres can be actuated to damp overshoot and oscillation and reduce the robot’s settling time.

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Web resources:	https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/260051
Start date:	01-07-2010
End date:	30-06-2013
Total budget - Public funding:	5 406 108,00 Euro - 3 899 996,00 Euro

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Original description

The primary goal of HARCO project is to achieve cost-effective structural solutions consisting of a new class of Smart Components (belonging to machine tools applications) based on plug-and-produce “Modular Adaptronic devices” which integrate smart and multifunctional actuators/sensors capable of performing a wide array of multiple functions, ranging from high and adaptable damping and stiffness characteristics to more demanding new requirements, such as active structural measurement and control function to achieve extremely high dynamic/thermal stability required in fast and precision machining. The approach followed by HARCO is the hierarchical combination of lower level units (named here “Functional Bricks” to generate higher level modules (named here “Adaptronic Modules”) which in turn are used and integrated into machine parts to generate the master component (named “Adaptive Smart Components”). Then the basic idea is to design and develop a sort of “fractal” and “hierarchical” elements (not only mechanical hardware but also controllers and software) that can be easily put together (plugged-in) to form/produce higher level modules/components (modules that build modules!) for active vibration control, thermal compensation and adaptive fixturing in precision machine tools applications.