Development of a Graphic Simulation Modeller for Robot Welding Process Planning

로보트 용접 공정 계획을 위한 Graphic Simulation Modeller의 개발

Presented in this paper is a procedure of developing graphical simulation software for planning robot welding processes. Welding is by far the highest application area for industrial robots, and it has been in great need of such a simulator in designing robot work cells, in justifying the economics of robot welding and in planning robotized welding operations. The model of a robot welding cell consists of four components: They are an welding structure which is a collection of plates to be welded, a positioner to hold the welding structure, a robot with a weld torch, and a set of welding lines (in case of arc welding). Welding structure is modeled by using the reference plane concept and is represented as boundary file which is widely used in solid modeling. Robot itself is modeled as a kinematic linkage system. Also included in the model are such technical constraints as weaving patterns and inclination allowances for each weld joint type. An interactive means is provided to input the welding structure and welding lines on a graphics terminal. Upon completion of input, the program displays the welding structure and welding lines and calculates the center of mass which is used in determining positioner configurations. For a given positioner and robot configuration, the welding line segments that can be covered by the robot are identified, enabling to calculate the robot weld ratio and cycle time. The program is written in FORTRAN for a VAX computer with a Tektronix 4114 graphic terminal.