Until presently, robotic welding has been a very sacred area. It has been restricted to high production applications only, and this was because of the time it took to program a change in the lines of products. A setup robot welder will need in-depth knowledge, and the precise methods do not just come in handy for programmers- they are not intuitive.
Historically, the problem associated with robotic welding has been complex, and four major factors make the process profitable for any company;
The high volume of parts, a high repetitive welding task, there is also the need of an in-house expert to set the application and then an in-house welding knowledge to fine-tune the welding settings of the robot. Hence before a company set-up a profitable robotic welding application, these four factors have to be available.
Hence here are the top significant five challenges that are experienced in Robotic Welding
To be adequately useful as a programmer, you must learn the length of time that it takes to program a change in product lines. A set-up robot welder will require a proper knowledge in programming.
1 Programming work, a welding robot, robotic welders and robotic welding from different robotic manufacturers; the control system of a computer for robot varies from one manufacturer to another. Sometimes, a teach pendant can be applied to move the robot welder around with an arrow, yet it is not an intuitive method of teaching; this is so because every of the linkage can be moved in one direction at a time.
2. The process of programming the path plan and each of the linkage trajectories. This whole procedure of programming the welding robot will be a lot easier if the tip of the industrial robot arm or the position of the end-effector is considered. However, the arms, joint and the location of each of the segment need to be adequately analyzed and programmed to consider the changes in arcs and joint angles.
3. Determine the acceleration and decelerations of each of the linkage. The actual speed of the linkage needs to be ascertained and specified just with the best acceleration and deceleration at every point.
4. Define the sensor input and outputs. There is a need to learn some more programming so that a robot can use the sensor as inputs and outputs and as a binary signal to select the robot programs and perform some set actions.
5. Get experience by trial and error. The art of programming a robot welder correctly can take years to be an expert in and master properly. Hence there is a need for a training process, and this needs some trial and error.
At a program in 2013 tagged Automate 2013, a known robotic brand, Robotiq gave a special insight to a new robot accessory called the Kinetiq Teaching, this allows the welders to move the arms of the robot through workflow freely and then adjust the welding parameters just as the work goes on, to properly teach the robot via the teach pendant and then test the procedure live. Robots txt also has this insight into this new robot accessory. This has brought a solution to several of the challenges as it resulted in a simple and intuitive approach to the programming welding trajectories.
The teach pendant programming entails moving the industrial robot arm to each of the points of its trajectory by using 12 of the teach pendant buttons. This needs the operator to get the best coordinate frame which determines the direction in which the robot moves. However, the operator must learn the robot specific programming language using the teach pendant.