PATH GENERATION FOR WELDING ROBOT: AN APPLICATION OF GEOMETRIC MODELING SYSTEM

The purpose of this study was to develop a model-based path generation system for a welding robot using the 'COMPAC' Geometric Modeling System. The General Electric P50 robot was used as a prototype robot in this research. Initially, the user establishes the world modeling through the COMPAC system and then describes the requirements of each operation to the system. The path generation system will automatically generate a collision-free path for the robot arms and tool. The output from the system is a sequence of straight line segments which approximate the safe path. These line segments will be used to frame-animate the welding operations by using the COMPAC system on a Tektronix graphic display terminal.