Interactive laser-projection for programming industrial robots

A method for intuitive and efficient programming of industrial robots based on Augmented Reality (AR) is presented, in which tool trajectories and target coordinates are interactively visualized and manipulated in the robot´s environment by means of laser projection. The virtual information relevant for programming, such as trajectories and target coordinates, is projected into the robot´s environment and can be manipulated interactively. For an intuitive and efficient user input to the system, spatial interaction techniques have been developed, which enable the user to virtually draw the desired motion paths for processing a work piece surface, directly onto the respective object. The discussed method has been implemented in an integrated AR-user interface and has been initially evaluated in an experimental programming scenario. The obtained results indicate that it enables significantly faster and easier programming of processing tasks compared to currently available shop-floor programming methods.