Use of autonomous UAVs for material supply in terminal strip assembly

The multi-variant small part assembly of terminal strips requires in-novative approaches for automated picking and meeting increased product vari-ability demands with increasing process flexibility. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are likely to be used in material supply for small parts and, therefore, replace manual picking of parts that are rarely needed in assembly. An autono-mous material supply in the 3rd dimension could break up fixed assembly pro-cesses, reduce picking time and raise the production flexibility. In this article, the share of manual picking time in a real terminal strip assembly line is deter-mined, and UAVs as a potential transport solution for terminals and jumpers are presented.