New sen­sor tech­nol­o­gy makes robot sensitive

Instal­la­tion of components

The used sen­sor is a capac­i­tive force torque sen­sor for 6 vari­ances of Mit­subishi that is pos­si­ble to mea­sure forces and torques with a res­o­lu­tion of 0,03N respec­tive­ly 0,0006Nm. It is mount­ed by an adapter plate between hand flange and robot hand (effec­tor). A ser­i­al inter­face to the data exchange and a pow­er sup­ply are already obstruct­ed in the robot and can be direct­ly led through the arm and con­nect­ed to the sen­sor. By a force sen­sor unit the pow­er sup­ply and the data cable are con­nect­ed to the con­trol unit of the robot.

Func­tion­al range and appli­ca­tion possibilities

In that case that the force is used as input para­me­ter of the con­trol sys­tem the modes stiff­ness or force can be tak­en. When using the stiff­ness-mode the robot kine­mat­ics acts on the effec­tor like a spring with cer­tain stiff­ness and gives way to the force effect in case of col­li­sion or exte­ri­or force effect. In that mode the robot can react in a smooth way to process devi­a­tions like tol­er­ances in case of posi­tion­ing of assem­bling com­po­nents and can cor­rect its path and sur­round­ing cor­re­spond­ing­ly. When using the force mode the robot moves on its path by keep­ing the pro­vid­ed forces respec­tive­ly torques. This mode can be used for improve­ment of process­es of machin­ing like grind­ing and pol­ish­ing of sur­faces. Besides the modes detec­tion and log can be tak­en in case of col­li­sion super­vis­ing or sim­ple mea­sure­ment data reg­is­tra­tion and stor­ing. The mea­sure­ment data can be used in the qual­i­ty assur­ance and for test sys­tems. Thus the feel or the atti­tude of a prod­uct can be ana­lyzed by per­ma­nent stress in a long time test.