MarineNews-2017-02

I

t wasn’t too long ago that SSI and Wolf Robotics demon-

strated some co-development which automatically drove

a fully autonomous welding robot to weld several ship

panels. SSI develops Autodesk based solutions for the ship-

building and offshore industry including ShipConstructor

software, an AutoCAD based CAD/CAM product line;

and EnterprisePlatform, a tool for sharing product data

model information. For its part, Wolf Robotics has been

integrating robotic welding and cutting systems since 1978.

The collaboration was part of a National Shipbuild-

ing Research Program (NSRP) Computer Aided Robotics

Welding (CAR-W) project with U.S. shipyards. Promi-

nent among those participating shipyards was Bollinger,

who today is testing that cutting edge technology, hoping

to be up and running by mid-year, as it builds the U.S.

Coast Guard’s all-important Fast Response Cutters (FRC).

Defining the Objectives, Assembling the Team

According to SSI’s R&D Manager Patrick David, the proj-

ect focused on looking for ways to reduce manpower costs, as

well as standardizing and producing better quality welds. He

explains, “The big problem for shipbuilding in terms of us-

ing robotics is that there is a high degree of product variabil-

ity. Even though ships of the same class are going to be very

similar, the nitty-gritty differences are enough that it wreaks

havoc on trying to set up a purely automated manufacturing

system/assembly line.” And, with those obstacles in mind,

SSI, Wolf Robotics and Bollinger Shipyards embarked on the

remarkable project. And while this effort, to date, isn’t the

end of the journey, it likely represents a quantum leap for-

ward in shipbuilding effi ciencies on this side of the big pond.

Bollinger Shipyards is a longtime and active participant

in the NSRP. This particular project began when Dennis

Fanguy, VP of Quality Management Systems at Bollinger

Shipyards was contacted by Wolf Robotics in mid-2014 to

see if Bollinger would be interested in leading the NSRP

CAR-W project. “Bollinger agreed to lead this project

and submitted the proposal in September of 2014 and we

were then awarded a contract to proceed in June of 2015,”

explained Fanguy, adding quickly, “The objective of this

NSRP project was to close the automation gap between

domestic and foreign shipyards by eliminating the core

programming bottleneck currently preventing broad in-

dustry adoption of robotic welding automation.”

The team then set out to develop software algorithms

for high impact weld types centered on robot reachabil-

TECHNOLOGY

SHIP

CONSTRUCTOR

DRI VES

AUTOMATIC

W

ELDING

R

OBOTS

SHIP

CONSTRUCTOR

DRI VES

AUTOMATIC

W

ELDING

R

OBOTS

SHIP

CONSTRUCTOR

DRI VES

AUTOMATIC

W

ELDING

ROBOTS

SHIP

CONSTRUCTOR

DRI VES

AUTOMATIC

W

ELDING

ROBOTS

The last barrier to robotic shipbuild-

ing has just fallen. What comes next will

be truly exciting.

By Joseph Keefe

24 MN February 2017