Automated Programming for Robotic Welding

Robotic welding automation allows manufacturers to increase quality, flexibility and reduce costs. However, the costs involved in programming welding robots for small production runs limits viability for Small and Medium Enterprises to employ arc welding automation. This paper outlines an Automated Offline Programming framework which can be used to generate robot programs directly from Computer Aided Design models with minimal human input, allowing programming costs to be drastically reduced or even eliminated. The key stages of our approach are presented and a specific implementation for welding of complex pipe structures is shown. The results demonstrate the feasibility of our method to enable truly flexible robotic welding automation.