Development of an Automatic Programming Method for Industrial Robot Manipulators

Abstract

Industrial robots are used extensively in production processes. While improving the production speed and quality, these robots provides significantly reduction in costs. Therefore, the use of robots increases in the large-scale companies that perform mass production. Since the market prices of robots decreases and it is possible to buy used robots with a reasonable prices, a small-sized companies are able to provide a robot. However, the main problem is robot programming over obtaining a robot. The robot must be reprogrammed by an operator to perform operations on any parts. The robot programming should be performed for each new piece and each defined tasks. In this case, the company should employ a specialist operator once buy a robot. Employing a specialist operator is not cost-effective for the company or the company cannot find an operator. In this project, we will intend developing methods to facilitate the programming of the robot and thus to eliminate the need for specialist operators. With the use of methods developed, the robot may be automatically re-programmed in a several steps for performing operations on a part by the robot. Firstly, the robot will navigate a range sensor around a given part; the resulting 3-D image will be presented to the operator. The operator marks the points on the image where a process is performed by the robot. The robot motion planning process will take place automatically by the system such that the motion trajectory passes over the marked points. Then, the robot carries out the tasks by employing the motion plan. Another parts of the same type map be processed by the robot using the same motion plan. Thus, the robot programming task is performed by simple markings on the image.

Keywords

Industrial Robot Manipulators, robot programming, 3-D modelling, trajectory generation

Fund

Funded by The Scientific Research Project Foundation of Osmangazi University (Project #201315044(2013-77))