Robot Motion Realisation Using LabVIEW

Abstract

Any kind of robot motion can be defined by the path and the velocity along it. Usually the velocity is given in the form: $\dot\lambda =f(\lambda )$ where the parameter $\lambda $ is the length of the path, $\dot\lambda $ is the velocity along the path. The determination of the velocities along the path is named trajectory planning. Various kinds of motion (time optimal, motion with constant kinetic energy, process optimal, etc.) are given by different approaches. Therefore, there is a reason to implement robot control device which can realise the motion along a given path with arbitrary velocity profile. Generally speaking, it is rather difficult to solve this task using the existing control units of industrial robots. The LabVIEW Virtual Instrument technology gives an opportunity to build different sophisticated control systems. Such an approach makes the system rather flexible than the existing ones and allows to get information, using the LabVIEW interface, about the inner processes in convenient form. All these advantages are very important for experimental investigations of different control methods. Using this control device time optimal robot motion was realised. It is also possible to realise robot motion along the given path with arbitrary velocity profile. The results obtained by the LabVIEW based control system can be applied to the investigations of the robot motion and to evaluate the goodness of different control principles.