Graphical simulation for sensor based robot programming

The programming of robots is slowly evolving from traditional teach pendant methods to graphical Off-Line Programming (OLP) methods. Graphical simulation tools, such as OLP, are very useful for developing and testing robot programs before they are run on real industrial equipment. OLP systems are also used to develop task level programs. Traditional OLP systems, however, suffer from the limitations of using only position control which does not account for inherent robot inaccuracies and dynamic environments. This paper describes our work on improving and supplementing traditional position control programming methods. A baseline OLP system was implemented at NIST's Automated Manufacturing Research Facility (AMRF). Experience gained in implementing this system showed that an effective OLP system must accurately simulate the real world and must support sensor programming to compensate for real-world changes that cannot be simulated. The developed OLP geometric world model is calibrated using robot mounted ultrasound ranging sensors. This measurement capability produces a baseline geometric model of relatively good static accuracy for off-line programming. The graphical environment must also provide representations of sensor features. For this specific application, force is simulated in order to include force based commands in our robot programs. These sensor based programs are able to run reliably and safely in an unpredictable industrial environment. The last portion of this paper extends OLP and describes the functionality of a complete system for programming complex robot tasks.