An Effective Learning Approach for Industrial Robot Programming

Programming an industrial robot by using a teach pendent is a tedious and time-consuming task that requires a considerable amount of work-related skills, robotics knowledge and experience. Robot applications design also requires a tremendous amount of programming skills and input/output controls to make them useful. Obviously, a good robot programmer is a key factor of successful robot applications. In order to teach manufacturing engineering technology (MET) students to program industrial robots, we propose an effective learning approach for industrial robot programming in our curriculum. Research indicates that the use of off-line programming (OLP) method for learning industrial robot programming has a positive impact on reducing the robotics lab programming time (Ex. only two robots are available for 20 students), reducing the downtime of equipment when programming new work pieces/variants, and accelerating programming complex paths. This paper describes the development of off-line programming method to help students learn industrial robot programming. The off-line programming method is based on examples from industry and illustrates several good robot program designs. Overall, The OLP method provides not only our students an excellent learning environment but also a powerful teaching tool for MET instructors. Our results indicate that the students have the following competence to: 1) study multiple scenarios of a robotic workcell before any decision is committed, 2) determine the cycle time for a sequence of manufacturing operations, 3) Use libraries of pre-defined high-level commands for certain types of robotic applications, 4) minimize production interruption and help meet flexible automation goals, and 5) ensure that a robotic system will do the functions that an end-user needs it to do. We also recognize that the students who understand both robotics hardware and offline programming (OLP) software in combination is a challenge for many other colleges and universities. Not many students are proficient at both, but our students are.