Recent progress on programming methods for industrial robots

2010

Most of the interfaces which are designed to control or program industrial robots are complex and require special training for the user and the programmer. This complexity alongside the changing environment of small medium enterprises (SMEs) has lead to absence of robots from SMEs. The costs of (re)programming the robots and (re)training the robot users exceed initial costs of installation and are not suitable for such businesses. In order to solve this shortcoming and design more user-friendly industrial robots, we propose a new interface which uses augmented reality (AR) and multimodal human-robot interaction. We show that such an approach allows easier manipulation of robots at industrial environments.

The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2005

A procedure for the automatic generation of the robot programming used in manufacturing operations is introduced in the present paper. The off-line programming system developed here includes graphical simulation of the robot and its workcell, kinematic model of the robot, motion planning and creation of the NC code for manufacturing process. The proposed system is applied in a robot with five revolute joints for manufacturing operations and in a robot with six revolute joints for welding operations.

2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2011

Developing easy to use, intuitive interfaces is crucial to introduce robotic automation to many small medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Due to their continuously changing product lines, reprogramming costs exceed installation costs by a large margin. In addition, traditional programming methods for industrial robots is too complex for an inexperienced robot programmer, thus external assistance is often needed. In this paper a new incremental multimodal language, which uses augmented reality (AR) environment, is presented. The proposed language architecture makes it possible to manipulate, pick or place the objects in the scene. This approach shifts the focus of industrial robot programming from coordinate based programming paradigm, to object based programming scheme. This makes it possible for non-experts to program the robot in an intuitive way, without going through rigorous training in robot programming.

— It is well known that off-line programming (OLP) is an efficient control mode for industrial robots. However, OLP is not yet commonly and widely used in applications, since commercial OLP systems are very expensive, with prices even much higher than those of robotic systems themselves. Simple but effective OLP systems are desired, and such systems may be made based on other commonly used CAD systems. We have developed a robotic OLP system, which we called RobSim, based on SolidWorks and with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. RobSim is developed as an add-on tool for the commonly used CAD software SolidWorks. With this OLP system, an object can be made, imported or modified in the conventional mode in SolidWorks environment, and various trajectories for a robot can be easily and conveniently defined and modified in the same environment. Trajectory interposition, kinematic computation, dynamic and graphic simulation can be conducted. Finally executable codes can be generated for the robot to perform tasks. In this paper, the development of RobSim is demonstrated. Specifically, the architecture of RobSim, the method for extracting position and orientation from a pre-defined path on an object for the robot tool, and path transformation, are presented. Simulation and experiments are also conducted to verify the effectiveness of the OLP system.

Journal of Machine Engineering

Traditional programming methods often require expertise and significant time investment, which does not conform with Small and Medium size Enterprises (SMEs) nature in which High-Mix, Low-Volume (HMLV) orders are usually encountered. In this research, a Programming by Demonstration (PbD) method which aims to reduce the programming time and complexity while keeping a suitable level of execution accuracy is proposed. For this purpose, a special teaching tool is designed and manufactured. The tool has 5-spherical passive markers to indicate the position and orientation along the desired 3D path. An optical tracking system using stereo camera is used to capture the 3D pose of the teaching tool. The capturing algorithm is based on Circle Hough Transform (CHT) and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD). The developed tool and programming method have been tested experimentally. The results show successful capturing of the desired path points with a competitive level of accuracy compared with other methods.

International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, 2013

This paper presents an interactive programming method for programming industrial robots in ceramic applications. The main purpose was to develop a simple but flexible programming system that empowers the user with product driven programming without compromising flexibility. To achieve this flexibility, a two step hybrid programming model was designed: first the user sketches the desired trajectory in a spatial augmented reality programming table using the final product and then relies on an advanced 3D graphical system to tune the robot trajectory in the final workcell. The results measured by the end-user feedback show that a new level of flexibility was reached for this type of application.

Robotics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 2020

The manufacturing industry is seeing an increase in demand for more custom-made, low-volume production. This type of production is rarely automated and is to a large extent still performed manually. To keep up with the competition and market demands, manufacturers will have to undertake the effort to automate such manufacturing processes. However, automating low-volume production is no small feat as the solution should be adaptable and future proof to unexpected changes in customers' demands. In this paper, we propose a re-configurable robot workcell aimed at automating low-volume production. The developed workcell can adapt to the changes in manufacturing processes by employing a number of passive, reconfigurable hardware elements, supported by the ROS-based, modular control software. To further facilitate and expedite the setup process, we integrated intuitive, user-friendly robot programming methods with the available hardware. The system was evaluated by implementing five production processes from different manufacturing industries.

This study presents a modular-based implementation of augmented reality to provide an immersive experience in learning or teaching the planning phase, control system, and machining parameters of a fully automated work cell. The architecture of the system consists of three code modules that can operate independently or combined to create a complete system that is able to guide engineers from the layout planning phase to the prototyping of the final product. The layout planning module determines the best possible arrangement in a layout for the placement of various machines, in this case a conveyor belt for transportation, a robot arm for pick-and-place operations, and a computer numerical control milling machine to generate the final prototype. The robotic arm module simulates the pick-and-place operation offline from the conveyor belt to a computer numerical control (CNC) machine utilising collision detection and inverse kinematics. Finally, the CNC module performs virtual machining based on the Uniform Space Decomposition method and axis aligned bounding box collision detection. The conducted case study revealed that given the situation, a semicircle shaped arrangement is desirable, whereas the pick-and-place system and the final generated G-code produced the highest deviation of 3.83 mm and 5.8 mm respectively. An effective simulation is one that is able to place a user in a situation which is close, if not completely identical to the scenario of which the system is attempting to simulate. The correct term for providing a user with a sense of presence, or "being there", is immersive, where in the world of virtual interaction, is defined as a complex technology that replaces real-world sensory information with synthetic stimuli such as 3D visual imagery, spatialised sound, and force or tactile feedback 1. In manufacturing, the advent of computer numerical control (CNC) machining creates a form of ubiquitous computing, and provides an effective simulation as it becomes a necessity. CNC simulations have been developed in virtual environments for numerically controlled (NC) tool path verification and machining process optimisation 2. However, limitations still exist even though virtual reality (VR)-based systems have already been applied broadly in the manufacturing industry. Firstly, the system is usually costly, requires powerful hardware, and separates the simulation aspect from the machining aspect, meaning the user has to adjust the experience gathered from the 3D graphic environment to the real machining environment 3. Secondly, the system is so tightly integrated that it is difficult to support continuous improvement and lessens flexibility, considering that a fully autonomous CNC manufacturing environment from start to finish involves many steps, not just the machining aspect 4. For example, how does one determine the placement of machines to accommodate the CNC machining aspect, and how does one place the stock material onto the worktable in an autonomous system? This brings forward the demand for a new technology, dubbed augmented reality (AR). AR is a rapidly growing field of research that aims to fully integrate virtual with real environment. AR has been developed since the early 90s, but has only recently been emerging as one of the forefront of technology, mainly due to the rise of popularity in smartphones and tablets 5. Some of the systems that have been developed for production process are related to layout planning 6-10 , product design 11-15 , assembly 16-20 , robot programming 21-26 , and autonomous

Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Robotic Communication and Coordination, 2009

This paper describes flexible software for industrial robots. WinRS232ROBOTcontroi and winEthernetROBOTcontrol software were developed to be used in industrial robots. With this software, industrial robots can be integrated in modern production systems, in an easy and efficient way. A Robotic Bar and a Flexible Manufacturing Cell (FMC) were developed with the objective of showing the potentialities of the developed software. I.

2010