Automated Control Cabinet Wiring Solution for Scalable Renewable Energy Systems

Abstract

To successfully manage the transition to sustainable energy sources, the infrastructure for renewable energies such as photovoltaic systems, wind power, and hydrogen electrolyzers needs to be scaled up. Many of these systems rely on control cabinets, which are still manufactured manually. The shortage of skilled workers in electrical engineering requires rethinking toward automated control cabinet production to meet the increasing demand for energy infrastructure components. Almost half of the assembly time for manual control cabinets is spent on wiring. A reduction in cycle times using automation would lead to cost savings and an increased output in production. Furthermore, automated control cabinet wiring can reduce waste by minimizing errors during the wiring process. Current approaches to automate this process are inefficient, prone to errors, and time-consuming. In this paper, the processes for the automated wiring of control cabinets using different handling tools are presented and compared. Optimization potentials are identified, and solution approaches are presented. Furthermore, solutions are evaluated prototypically using a real research demonstrator for robot-assisted control cabinet wiring. The results of this paper demonstrate that the implementation of these optimizations leads to a flexible solution, contributing to a more efficient and cost-effective manufacturing process.