Abstract
This paper focuses on the kinematic control of a redundant robotic system taking into account particularities of the arc welding technology. The considered system consists of a 6-axis industrial robot (welding tool manipulator) and a 2-axis welding positioner (workpiece manipulator) that is intended to optimise a weld joint orientation during the technological process. The particular contribution of the paper lies in the area of the positioner inverse kinematics, which is a key issue of such system off-line programming and control. It has been proposed a novel formulation and a closed-form solution of the inverse kinematic problem that deals with the explicit definition of the weld joint orientation relative to the gravity. Similar results have also been obtained for the known problem statement that is based on a unit vector transformation. For both the cases, a detailed investigation of the singularities and uniqueness-existence topics have been carried out. The presented results are implemented in a commercial software package and verified for real-life applications in the automotive industry.
Highlights
Welding technology is a traditional application area of industrial robots, so it encourages intensive research and development of sophisticated model-based control and programming tools
This paper concentrates on one of such problems, the kinematic control of a redundant robot-positioner system. Such emphasis on the kinematics is originated from the dual nature of the robotic system control and programming, which requires defining both a logical structure of the manufacturing task and specifying spatial relations that are presented as motion parameters
This paper focuses on the kinematic aspects of the robot-positioner system, assuming that the simultaneous motion of the robot and the positioner are aimed at providing the optimal workpiece orientation relative to the gravity during welding
Summary
Welding technology is a traditional application area of industrial robots, so it encourages intensive research and development of sophisticated model-based control and programming tools Such software systems allow to optimise some process parameters, which directly influences the product quality and the working cycle of the system. This paper concentrates on one of such problems, the kinematic control of a redundant robot-positioner system Such emphasis on the kinematics is originated from the dual nature of the robotic system control and programming, which requires defining both a logical structure of the manufacturing task and specifying spatial relations that are presented as motion parameters. Prescribed velocity and orientation relative to the joint, while the weld must be properly oriented relative to the gravity vector For this reason, a typical welding station (Fig. 1) includes several computer-controlled machines: a 6-axis industrial robot (tool manipulator); a 1–2-axis positioner (object manipulator); and, optional, a 2–3-axis gantry (robot manipulator).
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