Design And Implementation Of The Trajectory Planning System For FSW Robot

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a new type of solid-phase connection technology. It has got much of the world’s attention so far from its invention. As a technology that can alternative the fusion welding, it has developed into large-scale, industrialized practical technology worldwide. The research on FSW technology of China begins from the late of the twentieth century. It involes many aspects including research on FSW equipment. With the development of computers, automation and CNC technology, the development of FSW equipment will be towards intelligence, automation and robotic direction in the future. The birth of industrial robots is a milestone in the field of automation. However, to improve the efficiency of the robot, not only need advanced hardware facilities, but also efficient software programming system. Thus, off-line programming technologies have emerged and gradually become a popular way of robot programming.In the conditions, we design a trajectory planning system for FSW robot, which is a dedicated off-line programming system for a specific FSW robot. The system based on robot teaching can handle linear, melons flap and arcs (ring) these three types of space flat welds. It completes the planning of motion path and posture for the end of the robot; automatically generates job files; manually imports the workpiece and displays it.The system is developed by VC++and OpenGL technology on Windows platfor. There are two main data files needed by the system, namely teaching files and graphic files. The main work of trajectory planning is processing the teaching data off-line. First, fit the weld track according to the given data. Then, interpolate the fitting curve and save the interpolation data. Finally, convert the data into standard NC format and output as file then use it for controlling the robot to complete the welding operation. In this system, teaching data is saved in a text file, and the STL graphics of parts are also saved as text format. The robot control system is SINUMERIC840D. So the final NC file is outputted in Siemens NC format.