Optomechanical Tray With Vacuum Pockets For Automation
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Solution Overview
Problem
The shipping and handling of optomechanical components, such as optical fiber arrays, are challenging due to their sensitivity and the need for cleanroom environments, leading to increased costs, material wastage, and decreased productivity in high-volume manufacturing scenarios.
Innovation Solution
A tray design with an array of pockets, each equipped with fiducials, vacuum holes, and cradle elements to securely hold and support optomechanical components, allowing for efficient automation and reduced human intervention, compatible with existing automation tools and meeting standard dimensions for component handling.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If optomechanical components are handled manually in cleanroom environments, then component sensitivity is protected, but productivity decreases and processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The tray acts as an intermediary carrier between manufacturing processes, providing a standardized interface that enables automated handling while protecting sensitive optomechanical components. The tray with pockets and support structures allows robotic systems to manipulate components indirectly, maintaining protection while enabling automation.
Solution Approach 2:
The tray divides multiple optomechanical components into separate pockets, allowing individual components to be handled, positioned, and processed independently by automated systems. This segmentation enables parallel processing of multiple components while maintaining individual protection and precision positioning.
2Ease of operation
If standard handling procedures are used for optomechanical components, then ease of operation is maintained, but material wastage increases and processing costs rise
Solution Approach 1:
The tray design provides universal functionality across multiple operations including shipping, storage, processing, and assembly. This multi-functional standardized carrier eliminates the need for specialized handling equipment for each operation, reducing material wastage while maintaining ease of operation through consistent interfaces.
Solution Approach 2:
Components are pre-positioned in designated pockets within the tray before processing begins. This preliminary arrangement ensures proper orientation and protection is established in advance, preventing damage and wastage during subsequent handling operations while maintaining operational simplicity.
3Productivity
If automated handling is implemented for optomechanical components, then productivity increases, but component protection and precision positioning become more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The tray serves as a protective intermediary between automated handling systems and sensitive optomechanical components. Automated robots manipulate the tray rather than the components directly, increasing productivity while the tray's physical structure maintains component protection and precise positioning throughout the process.
Solution Approach 2:
The tray provides localized protection and positioning features within each pocket, including custom-molded supports and fiducial markers. These localized quality features ensure that each component is individually protected and precisely positioned, enabling automated systems to handle multiple components simultaneously without compromising reliability.
4Reliability
If custom handling solutions are designed for each optomechanical component, then component protection is improved, but device complexity and manufacturing costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
A single standardized tray design provides universal protection and positioning for multiple different optomechanical components. This universal carrier eliminates the need for custom handling solutions for each component type, reducing device complexity and manufacturing costs while maintaining adequate protection through adaptable pocket designs.
Solution Approach 2:
While maintaining overall tray standardization, each pocket can be customized with specific support geometries and fiducial features tailored to particular component types. This local quality customization provides component-specific protection without requiring entirely custom handling systems, balancing reliability with manageable complexity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The tray design significantly reduces material wastage, decreases per-unit processing time, and increases processing rates by enabling automation, resulting in over 63% net weekly output increase in high-volume manufacturing scenarios.
Implementation Method 1
at least one vacuum hole configured to mate with a vacuum nipple fitting that applies a vacuum to secure the optomechanical component to the tray
Data Source
AI summary
Presented herein is a tray for shipping, handling, and/or processing optomechanical components. The tray has a plurality of pockets arranged in an array, wherein each pocket is configured to hold one optomechanical component, and wherein each pocket includes at least one fiducial hole, at least one vacuum hole, a first cradle element configured to support a clip that attaches to one or more optical fibers of the optomechanical component, and a second cradle element configured to support a head of the optomechanical component. Also presented herein is a clip for an optomechanical component that includes a body having a top face and a bottom face, and a plurality of gripping elements arranged in pairs on the bottom face, each pair of gripping elements configured to support a barrel of an optical connector attached to a corresponding optical fiber of the pair of optical fibers.