Automated generation of robot MAG surfacing path for remanufacturing system

Abstract

Remanufacturing engineering is a complex business due to the high degree of uncertainty in the production process. The robot welding path plan for remanufacturing system is a difficult problem. This investigation develops a novel approach to generate the robot welding path automatically based on the “slicing & stacking” principle. The proposed robot welding path generation strategy is conducted by three steps. First, a fast region filling algorithm is applied to automatically calculated points of intersection between tool path segments and layer boundary. Secondly, these points are connected into a continuous tool path of welding robot. Thirdly, output module of the remanufacturing system converts tool path plan result into robot programs, and exports to text files. Users can directly upload these program files to robot welding workstation to complete remanufacturing task. Remanufacturing experiment shows a satisfactory result.