Towards Automatic Welding-Robot Programming Based on Product Model

In the past decades, the programming of welding-robots has been given significant attention in the literature and commercially. However, in an engineer-to-order context, it still involves hard-coded parameters and requires a high amount of time to complete in an error-free manner. Welding-robot programming is a time-consuming process that requires critical human input to plan and execute the welding task. A direct consequence is low utilisation of welding-robots which renders the ownership of such devices unprofitable. This paper presents a novel approach for automatic programming of welding-robots based on product models. Instead of relying on hard-coding, the proposed system draws the necessary parameters from a product model, which contain most of the data needed to obtain a robot welding program. The aim is to integrate welding-robot programming in a seamless one-piece information flow across the production chain. The conceptual approach is demonstrated in practice and validated by experimenting with an elementary product. Results show that human input can be eliminated when it comes to the programming of robots, as long as specific criteria are met.