Application of SoildWorks and LabVIEW -based Simulation Technique to Gain Tuning of a 6-axis Articulated Robot

Nowadays the applications of industrial robots are spreading to a great extent so that various demands for industrial manipulators are increasing. While industrial robots are coming into wide use, the control techniques of the robots are being developed as their performance is being enhanced. In this paper, for accurate gain tuning of the labmanufactured 6-axis articulated robot (called as “RS2”) with less noise, a program routine of DSA (Dynamic Signal Analyzer) for frequency response method will be programmed using LabVIEW. Then robot transfer functions can be obtained experimentally using frequency response method with DSA program. Data resulted from the robot transfer functions are transformed into Bode plots, based on which an optimal gain tuning will be executed. Also another contribution of this paper is the proposal of SoildWorks and LabVIEW-based simulation technique for the gain tuning of a 6-axis articulated robot. To realize the simulation, the LabVIEW program used in the experimental gain tuning is incorporated with SolidWorks. The 3-D modeling of RS2 in SolidWorks is loaded into LabVIEW, instead of the physical robot of RS2. Moreover virtual 6 drivers are generated on the LabVIEW, making the joint axes of 3-D model coincident with the ones of actual RS2. Then the LabVIEW program used in the experimental gain tuning is loaded and connected to the virtual drivers. Finally SoildWorks and LabVIEWbased simulation is performed from axis 6 through 1 in the same manner as in the experimental gain tuning. The comparison of the simulation-based gain tuning with the experimental gain tuning can be shown to be almost the same as those of experimental gain tuning within 5% error bound. Based on the comparison, it can be suggested that the simulation-based technique of gain tuning can be applied to a 6-axis articulated robot through interlocking SolidWorks and LabVIEW , instead of the experimental gain tuning.