Optimal Workpiece Placement Based on Robot Reach, Manipulability and Joint Torques

Workpiece placement with respect to an industrial robot plays an important role in robotic manufacturing due to its influence on the configuration-dependent properties of industrial robots. Suboptimal placements of the workpiece may increase the required joint torques and decrease the dexterity of the robot. The focus of this work is to identify an optimal workpiece pose that enables a robot to carry out surface finishing with configurations that require the lowest possible joint torques while having maximum possible manipulability. We present a non-linear optimization-based algorithm to solve this problem and demonstrate the algorithm's capability on different workpieces which we share to facilitate further research in this area.

Automated summary

The placement of a workpiece with respect to an industrial robot is crucial in robotic manufacturing, as it affects the configuration-dependent properties of the robot. This study focuses on identifying the optimal pose for the workpiece to enable the robot to perform surface finishing with minimal joint torques and maximum manipulability. A nonlinear optimization-based algorithm is proposed and demonstrated on various workpieces to facilitate further research in this area.