Collision Avoidance of a Welding Robot for a Large Structure (Application of Potential Field)

This study deals with the automation of welding by generating control commands for a welding robot automatically. Generally, a movement of a robot is decided depending on the tool path – a series of positions and postures of the tool attached to the mechanical interface of the robot. We tried to generate the tool path focused on the collision avoidance of the welding tool on the basis of CAD data on the workpiece. In the study, to cope with a characteristic of welding, the requirement to be continuous in tool velocity and posture, the tool path is generated through the use of a potential field in a configuration space. As a result, the system is found to successfully generate smooth and collision-free tool paths.