Industry

For one of its clients in the aerospace sector, Cilyx envisioned, designed, and developed a robotic assembly and testing line for lamps.

With this initial automation in their process, the client’s objective was clear: to maintain competitiveness by optimizing the efficiency of their operations while improving the final product quality through increased assembly repeatability.

The concept started from scratch, with Cilyx teams collaborating with the client’s product development team to create the initial machine concept and then develop it further. After a year of study and development, the final result is a semi-automatic line capable of assembling different product configurations precisely and efficiently. Various integrated components (robots, automatic screwdrivers, electric axes, and various actuators) perform repetitive tasks with high precision while operators supervise the process and focus on activities requiring their expertise. Through photometric and sealing tests performed automatically at the end of assembly, the designed production line delivers a final product ready for delivery.

This new assembly line brings significant added value to the client. Firstly, automation has significantly reduced the number of assembly errors due to the difficult management of different component configurations. Furthermore, a quick return on investment is expected due to an annual production of 45,000 pieces in one shift.

Finally, by freeing operators from repetitive tasks, the solution provided by Cilyx has also allowed them to redirect their work towards higher value-added tasks.

Sorting and recycling are important processes that help to conserve resources and reduce waste. Sorting is the process of separating materials or items into different groups based on their characteristics, such as their size, shape, or composition. This is often done to prepare materials for recycling or disposal.

Recycling is the process of converting materials that would otherwise be discarded into new products. It helps to conserve natural resources, such as trees and minerals, and reduce the environmental impact of waste by reducing the need to extract and process raw materials.

REVERSE METALLURGY | A cooperative R&D project supported by regional and european founds

As part of the project Reverse Metallurgy, Cilyx, in collaboration with Comet Treatment and the University of Liège, develops an intelligent high throughput sorting system for  characterization of metallic automotive shredder residues for recycling purposes .

This solution is equiped with various sensors:

• XRT (X-Ray Transmission) for measuring the density of the material.
• 3D to measure the shape parameters of the crushed objects.
• Hyperspectral to measure its reflectance spectrum.

This solution allow a real-time high-speed classification of the different metallic objects with help of multiple robots used in parallel.

As part of a research and development project funded by the Walloon Region, Cilyx has developed and built a non-destructive control cell for the detection of defects during the manufacture of composite parts. Designed for the constraints of the aviation industry, this cell integrates several inspection technologies and allows the complete automation of the scan of large parts with complex geometry. Two inspection methods are used: shearography and thermography. The programming of inspection trajectories is carried out offline based on the CAD modeling of the components to be inspected.