FROM CAD-BASED KINEMATIC MODELING TO AUTOMATED ROBOT PROGRAMMING

The objective of this work is twofold: firstly, to present the potenti al of CAD-based techniques with respect to implementing a user-friendl y tool for systematic and efficient kinematic modeling and analysis of general assembly products, and secondly, to detail the significance o f this approach for the development of a Robotic Assembly Language Pla nning Hierarchy (RALPH), a task-level automatic robot programming syst em. With the Product Assembly Modeler (PAM) as the environment for kin ematic modeling, the geometric and topological information in the syst em's database is utilized to derive and solve the kinematic equations that characterize a mechanism. Spatial relationships play a central ro le in this process as they represent the kinematic constraints implied by the joints. The advantages of embedding kinematic analysis in PAM comprise the flexibility of modeling open and closed loop mechanisms, the visual study of motion of a mechanism, and the evaluation of the i ntegrity of the design. PAM also provides the geometric and topologica l data for RALPH to generate a process plan for robotic assembly. CAD- based kinematic modeling and analysis plays a key role with respect to automated programming of industrial robots due to the importance of t he inverse kinematic problem.