Process planning and offline programming for robotic remote laser welding systems

The paper introduces a complete offline programming toolbox for remote laser welding (RLW) which provides a semi-automated method for computing close-to-optimal robot programs. A workflow is proposed for the complete planning process, and new models and algorithms are presented for solving the optimization problems related to each step of the workflow: the sequencing of the welding tasks, path planning, workpiece placement, calculation of inverse kinematics and the robot trajectory, as well as for generating the robot program code. The paper summarizes the results of an industrial case study on the assembly of a car door using RLW technology, which illustrates the feasibility and the efficiency of the proposed approach.