Intuitive robot tool path teaching using laser and camera in Augmented Reality environment

This paper presents a new intuitive method for robot tool path teaching in Augmented Reality (AR) environment. Conventional industrial robot teaching method is long known to be either tedious or require a highly accurate virtual representation of robot work cell. Our method targets to provide the user with a fast and easy way of programming an industrial robot for useful tasks in a safe environment. In our system, a human robot interaction (HRI) system has been designed by fusing information from a camera and a laser ranger finder. The video images provide visual information to the user to operate the system, whereas the laser range finder captures the Cartesian information of the user intended robot working paths and trajectories. Furthermore, an AR environment has been designed where the virtual tool is superimposed onto the live video. The user simply needs to point and click on the image of the workpiece to generate the tool path. User can also adjust virtual tool orientation and simulate the tool trajectory in the AR environment, thus simplifying the robot teaching task. The proposed system has been tested for robot laser welding application. It is intuitive as no prior knowledge of robotic control is required in order to use our system. Most importantly, the system is safe and the user does not need to be physically close to the robot during path teaching.