When a workpiece is to be are welded around the outside corner, continuous welding without welding seam in the neighborhood of corner still remains a very difficult technique. Skilled welders weld corners by delicate "hand-eye coordination" while turn...
When a workpiece is to be are welded around the outside corner, continuous welding without welding seam in the neighborhood of corner still remains a very difficult technique. Skilled welders weld corners by delicate "hand-eye coordination" while turning workpiece manually. However, there is not a very clear solution to this problem in robotized arc welding process. In order to solve this problem, the coordination of a robot and d positioner with one or two axes is necessary. This paper presents a method of continuous welding around the corner of workpiece using the coordinated motion of a robot and a positioner. The positioner is either revolute jointed or prismatic jointed. In this paper, a clothoid curve is chosen for welding trajectory. The clothoid curve is excellent in connecting straight and curved weld-lines with good continuity and accommodates various welding conditions. By using this welding trajectroy, the deceleration, which leads to widening of the melt and the heat affected zone, at corner area is reduced with strategic rotation of robot torch in coordination with a positioner providing smooth transition of slope conditions. These clothoid curves are applied to the case of linear and rotary postitioners at arc welding robot work-cell.