Development of Robotic Machine Tool Towards Industrial Business

Huapeng Wu , Heikki HandroosLappeenranta University of Technology

1. Background

•Since 2000, the EFDA in EU has launched several tasks to develop an intersector welding robot (IWR) for carrying out welding and machining inside the VV . The Laboratory of Intelligent Machine in Lappeenranta University of Technology has participated the related projects and developed Three generations of special hybrid machines as the solutions to the tasks.

•The machining, welding and handing tests have been carried out in this laboratory by cooperating with CEA in France, VTT in Finland and Ansaldo in Italy.

•In 2006, the EFDA evaluated the different possible methods based on the commercial serial robots, the special machines and the IWR robot. The evaluation report concluded that the hybrid parallel robot IWR is the best solution to the required tasks.

Prototype and Control System Integration

Hydraulicstation

1) First generation of parallel robot machine

First generation of parallel robot machine

-Technical achievements from first Version1. Five degree of freedom full parallel robot Penta-WH 2. Stainless steel martial cutting3. Stainless steel Laser welding , Seam tracking algorithm 4. Control software for Robot and CNC functions5. Control strategy for hydraulic servo control 6. Calibration method with Differential evolution algorithm7. Communication algorithm for different control system

( local NetWare )

Laser welding with seam tracker Stainless cutting softerware

2) Second generation of parallel robot machine

Second generation of parallel robot machine

-Technical achievements from second Version1. Ten degree of freedom Hybrid parallel robot IWR 2. Stainless steel martial milling 3. Control software for Robot and CNC functions4. Control strategy for robot tracking motion 5. Calibration method with MCMC algorithm6. Man-machine interface 7. Trajectory planning takes into account deflection 8. Machining vibration suppressing.

6-Degree of freedom Robot machine

3 linear motion and 3 rotation for

handing , welding and machining

No extra machine head and handing beam are need

Robot machineWith milling tool

Robot machineWith splice plate holder

3) Third generation of parallel robot machine

2. Application to industry from the developments

1. Parallel mechanism applications • Realtime Simulator ( mobile machine, robot remote handing….)•Mobile Machine •High speed Machine .

Application in simulator Fast speed for laser cuttingMeVEA Ltd awarded the national Innofinland 2011-prize

Mobile machine

Application to industry from the developments

2. Laser tracking , Machine vision and CAD/CAM

Application to industry from the developments

4. Calibration method for general robot by laser beam with machine vision

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2 3

1 . Robot : it can be any robot used In the company. The link parametersCan be found from producer.

2. Laser beam : single laser beam with Dot pattern.

3. High resolution camera

4. Aluminium cube, 80mmx80mmx80mm

2 3

5. Suppress Chatter for industrial robot machine

Application to industry from the developments

Hybrid control strategy for Chatter suppressing

Application to industry from the developments6 .Control of robot by using standard industrial PC

Software developing for industrial applications.

Application to industrious from the developments

7. Reconfiguration of robot for different tasks

• Hardware reconfiguration•Software reconfiguration• Man- machine cooperation to complete tasks

Application in FMS system

3. Future work – development for industrial application

•Commercialized calibration methods• commercialized vibration suppress control methods• commercialized Hardware and software for robot machine•Commercialized mobile robot machine •Commercialized CAD\CAM\MV for robot applications

Spin- off company

4. Conclusions

1. Three robots have been developed for ITER application.

2. Several technologies developed have been or will be applied to industrial application other than ITER.

3. Future work will be aimed into commercial business