Immediate Assistance in Production: “EchoRing Emergency Kit” Gets Malfunctioning Robots Back Up and Running

Wear and tear or a momentary lapse in attention during manufacturing: Automated production can come to a standstill within seconds if wired communication lines to industrial robots unexpectedly fail. In such cases, the new “EchoRing Emergency Kit” allows for the rapid establishment of fully functional, wireless replacement connections—as the kit has successfully and impressively demonstrated during several months of use at the BMW Group plant in Leipzig.

When robots go offline due to a sudden failure of trailing cables or tool connections, the EchoRing Emergency Kit enables production to resume in no time. While EchoRing ensures the transmission of production data as a temporary solution, the causes of a cable malfunction can be addressed at a leisurely pace. If the fault cannot be resolved until the next scheduled maintenance or if more extensive repairs are required, the EchoRing Emergency Kit guarantees the continued operation of the respective system even over longer periods of time.

The BMW Group has been using the EchoRing Emergency Kit from R3 – Reliable Realtime Radio – at its production site in Leipzig for just over a year. Shortly after testing and evaluation in a robot test cell, the system was introduced into live production at the BMW Group’s Leipzig plant, where it also met the higher demands of complex robotic systems.

The EchoRing Emergency Kit contains all the hardware components required to immediately bypass faulty cable sections using wireless data transmission. These include “EchoRing Ethernet bridges” along with the corresponding antennas and installation cables, device-specific adapter kits (e.g., for PROFINET communication), and custom accessories for mounting the EchoRing components on the respective robot. An optionally available tablet (“Health Monitor”) enables quick and optimal configuration of the EchoRing wireless network and allows the user to view information on wireless quality at any time or as needed.

The scope of the solution provided can be customized to meet specific customer requirements. The EchoRing Emergency Kit is compatible with the robot systems in use (e.g., ABB, FANUC, KUKA).

Although the temporary workaround is primarily intended for emergencies, the established wireless connections can also be converted into permanent solutions upon request. EchoRing technology enables uRLLC-compliant data communication (ultra-reliable and low-latency communication) in the 5-GHz frequency band, making it a fully-fledged alternative to traditional Ethernet or industrial Wi-Fi installations. Based on the token ring concept, EchoRing enables wireless data connections with latency of less than five milliseconds at data rates ranging from 5 to 36 Mbit/s (depending on bandwidth and traffic priority).