Circular motion for robotized metal deposition : verification and implementation

Abstract: Metal deposition is an additive layered manufacturing process that deposits molten metal droplets on a substrate and by repeating this process layer by layer, a complex shaped 3D geometry can be manufactured. In this thesis, the metal deposition process is performed by a robot with a wire feeder tool and a laser as energy source to melt the metal wire. The robot programming for robotized metal deposition process can be completely automated by computer aided robotics software. University West is currently developing an add-in application in a computer aided robotics software, Process Simulate, that is capable of programming the robotized metal deposition process. The first goal of this thesis was to verify the up to now developed software and the process from CAD drawing down to robot code. Another goal was to find and implement an algorithm that will reduce the number of locations on a circular arc to three locations. The algorithm to minimize the locations must be capable of changing all the different curvature paths to linear and circular arc motions which are easy to translate to robot code. The user should be able to decide the fitting precision of the approximated motion path to the original path. A real robot cell setup is modelled in Process Simulate. This lets Process Simulate generate the correct robot code for that specific cell.  Since each robot cell has its own unique setup, a custom script will be developed that changes the universal robot code, that Process Simulate generates, to the custom robot code required in this specific robot cell. The software is improved and tested from CAD drawing down to robot code but still needs to be debugged more and needs implementation of some non-existing features.