Title: Development of a 5-DOF arc welding robot

Authors: Tao Li; Fayong Guo; Minzhou Luo; Marco Ceccarelli; Saixuan Chen; Long Fu; Xiao Liu; Meiling Wang

Addresses: Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Changwu Road 801, Changzhou (Jiangsu) 213164, China ' Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Changwu Road 801, Changzhou (Jiangsu) 213164, China ' Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Changwu Road 801, Changzhou (Jiangsu) 213164, China ' Laboratory of Robotics and Mechatronics, University of Cassino and South Latium, Via Di Biasio 43, Cassino (Fr) 03043, Italy ' Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Changwu Road 801, Changzhou (Jiangsu) 213164, China ' Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Changwu Road 801, Changzhou (Jiangsu) 213164, China ' Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Changwu Road 801, Changzhou (Jiangsu) 213164, China ' Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Changwu Road 801, Changzhou (Jiangsu) 213164, China

Abstract: In this paper, a new 5-DOF arc welding robot is introduced by looking at aspects of mechanical design, control system and handheld welding teaching (HWT) method. The structure of this robot is inspired by the functionality of selective compliance assembly robot arms. With the aim to achieve user-oriented HWT, magnet clutches and encoders are adopted into the transmission chains with large reduction ratio. In addition, a gravity balance mechanism is implemented in the robot design to reduce the efforts of operators. The processing of HWT operation is presented with an optimal space arc interpolation algorithm. Two main design characteristics of this robot are low-cost and easy-operation features as compared to conventional 6-DOF industrial robots. Finally, experiments are discussed from laboratory testing the welding performance and results are used to validate the efficiency of the proposed solution.

Keywords: industrial robots; mechanism design; robot design; robot operation; arc welding robots; 5-DOF robots; robot control; handheld welding teaching; HWT; magnet clutches; encoders; transmission chains; gravity balance mechanism.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMRS.2016.081118

International Journal of Mechanisms and Robotic Systems, 2016 Vol.3 No.2/3, pp.129 - 144

Received: 23 Jul 2015
Accepted: 15 Apr 2016

Published online: 23 Dec 2016 *

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