An approach for the automatic generation of robot paths from CAD-data

The manufacturing industry is nowadays subjected to an enormous competition pressure. The concept of the "digital factory" was introduced as the use of high-performance PCs has witnessed a striking expansion. It encompasses the employment of various tools that allow digitalizing, simulating and evaluating contemporaneously product design and production development. However, a lot of hurdles are still presented, when trying to apply results of digital simulations to the real production world. This justifies the need to focus research efforts in overcoming these inefficiencies. In this paper an approach based on a programming tool will be described. It aims at enabling the automatic generation of robot trajectory paths from different free forming surfaces of existing 3D-CAD models by means of the linear and circular interpolation. First trial tests have been carried out within a real robot based for windshields and rear windows sticking in co-operation with a big German automotive enterprise. These show a high system performance and stimulate further system improvements.