Force-torque sensor integration in industrial robot control

An industrial robot is usually equipped with position and velocity sensors and a program allows it to move along a certain path. This contribution explores the possibility to equip such an industrial robot with a 3D force-torque sensor. Its signals are integrated into the existing control system of the robot so it will be able to react to external influences. Then the robot is sensor controlled. After integrating the sensor, the control is configured in a way that the robot can be moved by hand. Furthermore the paper lines out basics for the realization of other applications: For the application a 6 axis KUKA KR16-2 in combination with a KRC2 edition05 controller is used. The necessary software enhancements to the controller and its configuration are described. To determine the required configuration parameters a method of calculation the sensor alignment and a way to determine the gravity coordinates is described. The following applications and experiments are illustrated: 1. hand-guided robot motion, 2. motion teaching during hand-guided robot motion and 3. sensor-guided motion. It is shown how gravity coordinates are calculated and for the motion teaching necessary data for the coordinate transformation is determined. Two ways of visualizing the measured forces are presented: the RSI-Monitor (Robot Sensor Interface) which is a KUKA tool for storing and display transient forces and a JAVA based applet that is able to display forces online during the robots operation.