High-velocity walk-through programming for industrial applications

Traditionally, industrial robots are programmed by highly specialized workers that either directly write code in platform-specific languages, or use dedicated hardware (teach-pendant) to move the robot through the desired via-points. Unsurprisingly, the inherently complex and time-consuming nature of this task is one of the factors that are still preventing industrial manipulators from being massively adopted by companies that require a high degree of flexibility in order to cope with limited production volumes and rapidly changing product requirements. In this context, the introduction of sensor-based walk-through programming approaches represents the ideal solution as far as the need to reduce programming complexity and time is concerned. Nevertheless, the main shortcomings of these solutions typically consist in limited reachable velocities during the programming phase due to safety constraints and in relying on open robot controllers. To this regard, this paper proposes a control architecture for walk-through programming of industrial manipulators specifically designed in order to (i) reach high velocities while guaranteeing the operator’s safety; (ii) allow straightforward integration with a generic closed robotic controller. The proposed solution is extensively validated on an industrial manipulator.