Anna-Karin Christiansson

Investigation of path compensation methods for robotic friction stir welding

Purpose – Friction stir welding (FSW) is a novel method for joining materials without using consumables and without melting the materials. The purpose of this paper is to present the state of the a ...

Low order sampled data H/sub /spl infin// control using the delta operator and LMIs

A procedure for H/sub /spl infin// optimization of low order controllers for discrete-time and sampled-data systems is presented in this paper. Generally, low order H/sub /spl infin// controllers may be achieved by solving bilinear matrix inequalities (BMIs). In this paper an iterative alternation between two LMIs gives a suboptimal solution. To avoid local minima in this search the initial controller is obtained by a frequency weighted controller reduction scheme, where the closed loop properties of a full order controller is taken into account. A minimal number of parameters in the state space realization of the controller also reduces the complexity and improves numerical robustness. The complete presentation is based on delta operator models, which shows a close relationship between the continuous- and discrete-time solutions. The sensitivity of the ordinary discrete-time shift operator LMI formulation to small sampling periods is also analyzed.

Stereo vision for path correction in off-line programmed robot welding

The paper describes a versatile machine vision system for correcting off-line programmed nominal robot trajectories for advanced welding. Weld trajectory corrections are needed due to slight variations in weld joints. Such variations occur naturally because of varying tolerances in parts and to heat induced deformations during earlier weld sequences. The developed system uses one camera and a weld tool mounted on the robot hand. As a first step, the whole system, including the camera, is calibrated. Then the system takes images of the weld joint from different positions and orientations, and determines the weld joint geometry in 3D using a stereo vision algorithm and a novel camera model. The weld trajectory is then updated in the robot control system, and weld operation is performed. These steps are repeated for all weld sequences of the work piece. The strategy has successfully been demonstrated for a standard industrial welding robot and a standard Fire Wire CMOS camera. The maximum deviation of the trajectory found by the system compared to a reference (coordinate measuring machine) is 0.7 mm and the mean deviation is 0.23 mm. Thus, the system shows high potential for industrial implementation.

Emissivity compensated spectral pyrometry for varying emissivity metallic measurands

A novel method for converting electromagnetic spectral radiance information into emperature measurements is presented. It allows for varying spectral emissivity of the metallic measurand during the ...

3D-Scanning for Weld Distortion Measuring

Optical three dimensional scanning for weld distortion measurements have been performed for validation, inspection, general visualization and documentation of a robotized welding process. The planning, preparing and processing of the weld is done in a simulation-based concept where computer aided robotics software simulations are integrated with finite element analysis simulations with the objective to reduce global geometrical deformation during welding. The off-line programmed robot paths were used as an input for finite element calculations of temperature fields and distortion in the work piece. In order to validate the finite element model 3D-scannings have been performed before and after every single welding sequence. This paper describes a validation experiment with non-contact measurements of weld distortion and discusses limitations in optical 3D-scanning techniques used for this purpose

Control Design for Automation of Robotized Laser Metal-wire Deposition

In this paper a novel approach towards automation of robotized laser metal-wire deposition (RLMwD) is described. The RLMwD technique is being developed at University West in cooperation with Swedis ...

Accuracy Investigation of a Vision Based System for Pose Measurements

The accuracy of a pose measurement system, called PosEye, is investigated. PosEye is a system for real time measurement of the position and orientation, the pose, of a camera (sensor) using the information in its image. This sensor is aimed to be mounted on an industrial robot for welding. The investigation was done by comparing the PosEye system position output to that of a coordinate measuring machine. Sources of errors are identified, and suggestions for improvements are made

Emissivity compensated spectral pyrometry-algorithm and sensitivity analysis

In order to solve the problem of non-contact temperature measurements on an object with varying emissivity, a new method is herein described and evaluated. The method uses spectral radiance measurements and converts them to temperature readings. It proves to be resilient towards changes in spectral emissivity and tolerates noisy spectral measurements. It is based on an assumption of smooth changes in emissivity and uses historical values of spectral emissivity and temperature for estimating current spectral emissivity. The algorithm, its constituent steps and accompanying parameters are described and discussed. A thorough sensitivity analysis of the method is carried out through simulations. No rigorous instrument calibration is needed for the presented method and it is therefore industrially tractable.

Tools for Simulation Based Fixture Design to Reduce Deformation in Advanced Fusion Welding

The traditional fusion welding and fixture simulations are performed using advanced finite element simulation tools, commonly used are e.g. MSC.Marc, ANSYS, ABACUS and COMSOL Multiphysics. These simulations are made one at a time and separately due to heavy calculation load for each case. Such an approach does not give a full description of the integrated work piece and fixture behaviour. We propose a strategy to decrease the computational time and solve the problem accurately enough for industrial needs. Focus of the simulation result is on residual deformation. The work piece is a simplified component composed by metal sheets, and rigid and loose clamping was investigated. Simulation results give the size of forces and deformations in the clamped edge. Deformation measurements are performed using 3D-scanning of the work piece after cooling and released from fixture, same situation as in the FE-simulations. The proposed strategy has shown to be useful and is industrially competitive due to reduced engineering manpower, computation time, and need for practical experiments. The strategy is to use full off-line programming where computer aided robotics for weld sequencies is integrated with finite element modelling in order to obtain weld parameters and fixture design.

Unified, periodic & sampled data H/sub /spl infin// control using the delta operator

A unified and general framework is presented for H/sub /spl infin// control of mixed continuous-time and discrete-time time-varying (periodic) systems. Using the delta operator, a close relationship is shown between the continuous- and discrete-time solutions. No assumptions are made on certain system matrices being zero or normalized, which makes the approach general and easy to apply. A combined continuous/discrete-time lifting procedure is shown to be useful, especially for ill-conditioned systems. This procedure together with the delta formalism results in a numerically robust design method concerning both short and long sampling periods for systems with W-conditioned dynamics, including widely spread eigenvalues.