Development of an Autonomous Soldering Robot for USB Wires

USB wires are commonly used in many 3C products (Computer, Communication and Consumer electronics), such as smartphones, laptops, and tablets. In the current procedure of soldering USB wires, several pre-processing steps before soldering are heavily dependent on manual works (i.e., Separating $\rightarrow$ Sorting $\rightarrow$Pressing), because of the small size and the deformable nature of USB wires. This paper reports the first result on autonomous robotic soldering of USB wires, where the whole procedure of soldering, including all the pre-processing steps, is fully automated. The visual feedback is employed in each step to assess the status of completion, and a series of novel mechanisms are designed and implemented to deal with the deformation of wires. The developed robot has the advantage of highly autonomous capability, in the sense that no human assistance or supervision is required throughout the procedure. The implementation of such a robot can systematically address the problems associated with manual works in the current procedure (e.g., high labor intensity, inconsistent quality, safety issue).