An Effective Programming by Demonstration Method for Smes’ Industrial Robots

Abstract

Traditional programming methods often require expertise and significant time investment, which does not conform with Small and Medium size Enterprises (SMEs) nature in which High-Mix, Low-Volume (HMLV) orders are usually encountered. In this research, a Programming by Demonstration (PbD) method which aims to reduce the programming time and complexity while keeping a suitable level of execution accuracy is proposed. For this purpose, a special teaching tool is designed and manufactured. The tool has 5-spherical passive markers to indicate the position and orientation along the desired 3D path. An optical tracking system using stereo camera is used to capture the 3D pose of the teaching tool. The capturing algorithm is based on Circle Hough Transform (CHT) and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD). The developed tool and programming method have been tested experimentally. The results show successful capturing of the desired path points with a competitive level of accuracy compared with other methods.