Robotic Friction Stir Welding Path Planning with Deflection Compensation Using B-Splines

Robotic Friction Stir Welding (RFSW) is an innovative process which allows the joining of aluminum materials with robots. The main drawback of using robots to perform friction stir welding is that the end effector of the robots deviates in position and orientation during welding. This is due to the high forces induced by the process and the weak stiffness of the robots. Thus, the compensation of the deviations must be taken into account in an RFSW path planning. In this paper, a methodology based on B-splines curves is proposed to generate offline a welding path with the compensation of the elastic deformation of a robot in order to achieve a high quality welding of three-dimensional workpieces. The methodology is validated on a Kuka robot KR500-2MT which performs a sinusoidal welding path defined on a cylindrical surface. The experiment shows the effectiveness of the methodology and allows to reduce significantly (about \(88\%\)) the lateral end effector deviation.

[1]  Andreas Müller,et al.  Smooth orientation path planning with quaternions using B-splines , 2015, 2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).

[2]  Geir Hovland,et al.  Off-line path correction of robotic face milling using static tool force and robot stiffness , 2015, 2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).

[3]  Stéphane Caro,et al.  Joint stiffness identification of six-revolute industrial serial robots , 2011 .

[4]  M. Spong,et al.  Robot Modeling and Control , 2005 .

[5]  Jinna Qin,et al.  Real-Time Trajectory Compensation in Robotic Friction Stir Welding Using State Estimators , 2016, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology.

[6]  Gunnar Bolmsjö,et al.  Investigation of path compensation methods for robotic friction stir welding , 2012, Ind. Robot.

[7]  Marcello Pellicciari,et al.  An Offline Programming Method for the Robotic Deburring of Aerospace Components , 2013 .

[8]  Hermes Giberti,et al.  A path planning algorithm for industrial processes under velocity constraints with an application to additive manufacturing , 2017 .

[9]  Z. Chen,et al.  Friction stir welding : from basics to applications , 2010 .

[10]  Nuno Mendes,et al.  Direct off-line robot programming via a common CAD package , 2013, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[11]  Maxime Gautier,et al.  Joint stiffness identification of a heavy Kuka robot with a low-cost clamped end-effector procedure , 2014, 2014 11th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO).

[12]  Wei Wang,et al.  A Path Planning Method for Robotic Belt Surface Grinding , 2011 .

[13]  Ming Cong,et al.  Automatic path and trajectory planning for laser cladding robot based on CAD , 2016, 2016 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation.

[14]  Michael F. Zaeh,et al.  Robotic Friction Stir Welding , 2007 .