A vision based micro-assembly system for assembling components in mechanical watch movements

Abstract

This paper presents a vision based micro-assembly system, which is designed to assemble various components in mechanical watch movements. With their sizes around a few millimeters, these components are traditionally assembled by skilled labors with specially designed tools and fixtures. In order to liberate the labors from the tedious work, we designed and built a vision based micro assembly system. The system consists of a XY table driven by linear motors, a Z axis driven by a servomotor, a computer vision system, a set of grippers, and an industrial PC. The control software is written in C++. The accuracy of the system is about 2 μm and the cycle time is about 20 seconds depending on the assembly tasks. The paper presents the system in details. Two practical examples are included.