Cooperating Robot Force Control for Positioning and Untwisting of Thin Walled Components

Abstract

Geometric deformations in large thin walled components such as airplane shells caused by gravitational influences have to be compensated before assembly. The research objective is to develop a metrology assisted robot based assembly system that detects deformations and compensates them through force controlled movements of the robots. This paper describes the development of a cooperating robot force control for three industrial robots. The control algorithm uses a numerical optimization to take into account the strong mechanical coupling of the robots by the handled component.