Presented are intelligent non-autogenous metalworking systems and control logic for automated wire-to-beam alignment, methods for making/using such systems, and robot-borne laser welding/brazing heads with closed-loop control for real-time wire alignment. A method for controlling operation of a non-autogenous workpiece processing system includes a system controller receiving sensor signals from a position sensor indicative of a location of filler wire discharged into a joint region by a wire feeder. Using the received sensor signals, the controller determines a displacement between the wire location and a location of a beam emitted onto the joint region by a beam emitter. If the wire displacement is greater than a threshold wire displacement value, the controller responsively determines a corrective force calculated to reduce wire displacement to below the threshold wire displacement value. The controller then commands the actuator to pivot the processing head to thereby apply the corrective force to the discharging filler wire.

An example welding-type power supply includes: power conversion circuitry configured to convert input power to welding-type output power; auxiliary power output circuitry configured to output auxiliary power via an auxiliary power connection; communications circuitry configured to communicate via the auxiliary power connection; and processor(s) configured to: detect, via the communications circuitry, that a robot control system is coupled to the auxiliary power connection; and in response to detecting the robot control system, configuring the welding-type power supply based on receiving a communication from the robot control system via the communications circuitry.

A robot teaching system includes: a photographing unit that photographs an image including a welding target and a marker installed on an industrial robot; a camera coordinate system setting unit that sets a camera coordinate system on a basis of the marker included in the image; an operation path setting unit that sets an operation path of the industrial robot on a basis of a welding position of the welding target included in the image in the camera coordinate system; and a program generation unit that generates a working program, while converting the set operation path from the camera coordinate system into a robot coordinate system set in a robot control apparatus on a basis of a position of the marker installed on the industrial robot. The robot teaching system generates a working program allowing appropriate welding at a welding position.

This patent defines a method for making robot programming more intuitive for tasks such as welding. The method further is an enhancement of manual guiding methods of robot positioning and can improve situations in which finer resolution or control of the robot end-effector is required. A motion sensor is mounted in series with the n−1 joint and in parallel with the n.sup.th joint, where n is the number of degrees of freedom or number of joints of the serial manipulator. The motion sensor is further mounted directly in-line with the n.sup.th joint and becomes part the opposing portion of the n.sup.th joint. The motion sensor further is uniquely adapted to apply to non-spherical wrist robots. The motion sensor senses input movements by a robot operator and controls the output tool motion in a controlled manner with resolution defined by user input at the motion sensor.

In various examples, a computer-implemented method of generating instructions for a welding robot. The computer-implemented method comprises identifying an expected position of a candidate seam on a part to be welded based on a Computer Aided Design (CAD) model of the part, scanning a workspace containing the part to produce a representation of the part, identifying the candidate seam on the part based on the representation of the part and the expected position of the candidate seam, determining an actual position of the candidate seam, and generating welding instructions for the welding robot based at least in part on the actual position of the candidate seam.

In an offline teaching device in the related art, in the case of changing a teaching program, even in the case of performing the same change at each teaching point, it is necessary to perform the change with respect to each teaching point. The offline teaching device of the present disclosure has a selection function, a first change function, a second change function, a welding line storage function, and a teaching program storage function. The selection function causes one welding line among a plurality of welding lines stored in the welding line storage function to be selected. The first change function causes content of a welding conditions configuring the welding line selected with the selection function to be changed. The second change function causes the welding conditions of entire instructions in the teaching program having the same welding line identification information as welding line identification information that is assigned to the welding line selected with the selection function to be changed to the same content as content changed with the first change function.

A controller calculates a correction amount of a position of a robot 1 at a movement point in a first movement path, and drives the robot 1 in a second movement path obtained by correcting the first movement path. The controller includes a second camera configured to detect a shape of a part after a robot apparatus performs a task, and a variable calculating unit configured to calculate, based on an output of the second camera, a quality variable representing quality of a workpiece. When the quality variable deviates from a predetermined determination range, a determination unit of the controller determines that the position or an orientation of the robot 1 needs to be modified based on a correlation between the correction amount of the position in the first movement path and the quality variable.

The installation position pointer system comprises a laser source to supply a laser beam, a driving device to align the laser beam, a controller device to control the operation of the driving device in accordance with an installation position data (IPD) of an attachment to be installed in a building and an associated reference position in the building, and an input device to obtain the IPD of a plurality of attachments from the attachment. The IPD of the attachments may be provided by an attachment installation position database system.

A total time necessary for work is shortened by reducing program correcting. A control device has a teaching program storage storing a teaching program, a command interpreter transmitting a movement-related command to a movement-related command separator, determining whether the command is a synchronous interval command or an asynchronous interval command and separating the movement-related command into command of each device according to a determination result, and executing a non-movement-related command, a movement-related command buffer selecting one of the transmission of the movement-related command to the sub-locus calculator and accumulating movement-related command therein based on a device movement state, a main locus calculator calculating movement information on the device on which synchronous control is performed from the movement-related command, a sub-locus calculator calculating movement information on the device that is not a synchronous control target based on the movement-related command, and a motor driver performing operations of the devices.

A method of planning works for robots includes creating a work plan for a plurality of robots, each having a work tool, sharing at at least one station a work to a plurality of work parts of the workpiece. The method includes the steps of calculating a distribution of the work parts to the robots, calculating, as a robot operation, a work order of the work parts and a moving path of the work tool for each of the robots based on the calculated work distribution, and calculating a disposed location of each of the robots with respect to the workpiece and a station where the robot is disposed so that an inter-robot interference does not occur during execution of the calculated robot operation.