Kinematics Analysis and Torch Pose Fitting for Welding Robot
Giant structure processes involve highly dangerous manual welding operations. aiming at the welding for giant structures, tankers and other large work pieces, a five degrees of freedom (DOF) gantry type automatic welding robot was developed which has our own property right. Forward/inverse kinematics for the mechanical structure is analyzed in which pose of the welding torch is defined as a free vector. Then kinematics equations were proposed for torch pose fitting. Finally, simulation results for robot kinematics analysis and torch pose fitting were also proposed with Matlab. The result not only proves the feasibility of torch pose fitting, but also provides a basis for further study on kinematic analysis, torch pose fitting and off-line programming about gantry type automatic welding robot.