Robot Tracking w/ Another Process Driving Speed and Path (Resistance Seam Welding)

[SeamWelder]

Has anyone dealt with any problems wth teaching a robot a path in an automation project where robot is not doing the driving this is done by another process. I am trying to use robots with a resistance seam welding process. The wheels of the seam welder drive the shell. The shell can only go parallel to the wheels or rotate a the wheels. This causes it to be very difficult to match the path of the robots with the path the wheels will let it take. Everytime you make an adjustment this changes the path it will take. Has anyone dealt with a similar problem? The main problem is getting around the corners of the shell without building up too much tension between the wheels and the robot when it gets off track. One other problem is the wheels will not let the robot make moves 90 degrees to the wheel once it is off track, so this builds up a lot of tension. Any thoughts? I am open to any ideas.

Thank You,

 

[Shox Dr]

There is a guy on here that has something to do with running Robotic welding, not sure if he reads the forum on a weekend though.

Welcome to the forum

 

[Robotstar5]

Depending on the make of robot, do you have a "compliance" function on the positional commands? on ABB robots it's known as "soft servo" and you can specify 0-100%. At 100% you can flex the end of the arm a fair amount without causing servo faults.

 

[Shox Dr]

^that's the man I was on about