Kinematic cooperated welding trajectory planning for master-slave multi-robot systems

The cooperated welding trajectory planning problem of multi-robot system without gripper tools is studied in this paper. By taking a master-slave dual robots cooperated welding system as the research object, a multi-robot cooperated trajectory planning approach based on the closed kinematic chain model is proposed. Firstly, orientation and position constraints between weld seams and the welding gun are analyzed, and a general closed kinematic chain of multi-robot welding workstation is created based on the coupled optimization principle of multi-robot cooperative motion with ship welding or downward welding requirements. Two typical cooperation modes, namely the tightly and loosely coupled cooperation, are discussed, and the corresponding cooperative motion models are established, which are applied to plate-to-plate, tube-to-plate, tube-to-tube welding scenarios of cooperated dual-robot welding systems. Off-line programming technology is used for simulations and the results show the effectiveness and feasibility of our proposed method.