Off-Line Programming in the Shipbuilding Industry : Open Architecture and Semi-Automatic Approach

In this paper, to improve the efficiency of welding and user convenience in the shipbuilding industry, a PC-based off-line programming (OLP) technique and the development of a robot transfer unit are presented. The developed OLP system is capable of not only robot motion simulations but also automatic generations of a series of robot programs. The strength of the developed OLP system lies in its flexibility in handling the changes of the welding robot’s target objects. Moreover, for a precise transfer of the robot to a desired location, an auxiliary mobile platform named a robot-origin-transfer-unit (ROTU) was developed. To enhance the cornering capability of the platform in a narrow area, the developed ROTU is equipped with 2 steering wheels and 1 driving wheel. Both the OLP and the ROTU were fieldtested and their performances were proven successful.