Robot Control Overview: An Industrial Perspective

Abstract

One key competence for robot manufacturers is robot control, defined as all the technologies needed to control the electromechanical system of an industrial robot. By means of modeling, identification, optimization, and model-based control it is possible to reduce robot cost, increase robot performance, and solve requirements from new automation concepts and new application processes. Model-based control, including kinematics error compensation, optimal servo reference-and feed-forward generation, and servo design, tuning, and scheduling, has meant a breakthrough for the use of robots in industry. Relying on this breakthrough, new automation concepts such as high performance multi robot collaboration and human robot collaboration can be introduced. Robot manufacturers can build robots with more compliant components and mechanical structures without loosing performance and robots can be used also in applications with very high performance requirements, e.g., in assembly, machining, and laser cutting. In the future it is expected that the importance of sensor control will increase, both with respect to sensors in the robot structure to increase the control performance of the robot itself and sensors outside the robot related to the applications and the automation systems. In this connection sensor fusion and learning functionalities will be needed together with the robot control for easy and intuitive installation, programming, and maintenance of industrial robots.

A review and framework of laser-based collaboration support

“…Lasers incur relatively lower cost and higher functional flexibility (Brogardh, 2009); lightweight, accurate, and highly reliable (Ishii, Zhao, Inami, Igarashi, & Imai, 2009); can have wider bandwidth, lower power requirements, and increased potential for covert data links in comparison with radio-based systems (Sofka, Nikulin, Skormin, Hughes, & Legare, 2009). Lasers can enable better tracking (Luber, Tipaldi, & Arras, 2011) and have inherent precision which results in better functionalities for precise collaboration.…”

“…(2) Also in manufacturing, transition from welded to hydroformed beams in the frames of vehicles in the US was enabled mainly by using robots and laser cutting, significantly less costly and more flexible compared with CNC machines (Brogardh, 2009). (3) In surgery and dental operations: Lasers can minimize cellular destruction, tissue swelling, and hemostasis.…”

Control architecture for a supervised industrial robotic workcell integration

“…Automotive industry has stimulated the development of industrial robot control techniques. A detailed study of robot manipulators modelling and control can be found in [7] and a comprehensive overview of industrial robot control is presented in [8]. Developed control systems techniques, visual servoing [9] and new mechanical structures have been used in order to meet high productivity performance.…”

Closed-Loop Dynamic Parameter Identification of Robot Manipulators Using Modified Fourier Series

“…Recently, robot manufacturers have increased development efforts towards new applications, e.g., machining, laser welding, laser cutting and multi-robot collaboration [1], which puts forward new performance requirements on robots. The requirements, which mean high speed and high precision, can be satisfied by involving advanced model-based control schemes [2,3].…”