Soft Welding Gun Pose Estimation for Confined-Space Welding
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional welding robots and welding torches with fixed geometries are unsuitable for confined spaces, leading to manual and laborious welding operations with inconsistent quality due to the lack of real-time tip pose sensing in soft welding guns.
Innovation Solution
A soft welding gun system that includes a welding machine, a nozzle, an elastic member, and a driving rope, with sensors to measure rope displacement and tension, and a method to calculate the welding gun tip pose using displacement, tension, welding current, and voltage, without external visual sensors.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If conventional welding robots and welding torches with fixed geometries are used, then welding operations can be performed with stable structure, but they are not suitable for welding operations in confined spaces
Solution Approach 1:
The welding gun employs a soft robotic arm with flexible, dynamic structure instead of fixed rigid geometry. The soft robotic arm can dynamically adjust its configuration to access confined spaces while maintaining structural integrity through elastic members that provide controlled flexibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The welding gun utilizes soft robotic components with flexible structures that can bend and conform to confined spaces. The elastic members and soft robotic arm provide the necessary flexibility to operate in restricted environments while maintaining functional integrity.
2Adaptability or versatility
If manual welding operations are performed in confined spaces, then flexibility to access difficult areas is achieved, but the operations are time-consuming and laborious with inconsistent welding quality
Solution Approach 1:
The welding gun incorporates a sensing apparatus with displacement sensors and tension sensors that provide real-time feedback on the soft robotic arm's pose. This feedback enables automated control and compensation for deviations, ensuring consistent welding quality while maintaining the flexibility to access confined spaces.
Solution Approach 2:
The system replaces manual mechanical welding operations with an automated soft robotic welding gun controlled by sensor feedback. This substitution eliminates human labor requirements while maintaining adaptability to confined spaces and ensuring consistent welding quality through automated control.
3Device complexity
If no sensing apparatus is installed on the soft welding gun, then the structure remains simple and compact, but the welding gun cannot obtain tip pose in real time leading to deviations and poor welding
Solution Approach 1:
The sensing apparatus acts as an intermediary between the soft robotic arm's mechanical structure and the control system. Displacement sensors and tension sensors measure physical quantities that indirectly reveal the tip pose, enabling accurate measurement without adding complex direct measurement equipment to the welding gun structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses sensor-based measurement and computational estimation to determine tip pose instead of mechanical measurement devices. This substitution maintains structural simplicity while achieving real-time pose detection through electronic sensing and mathematical modeling.
4Measurement precision
If external visual sensors are added to detect welding gun tip pose, then real-time pose detection is achieved, but the welding gun volume increases and suitability for confined spaces is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The sensing apparatus uses displacement sensors and tension sensors as intermediaries to infer tip pose from measurements taken at the welding gun's base or along its structure. This approach enables remote sensing of tip position without adding bulky sensors directly to the tip, maintaining compact dimensions suitable for confined spaces.
Solution Approach 2:
The system measures pose parameters in different dimensions or locations along the soft robotic arm rather than directly at the tip. By measuring displacement and tension at intermediate points, the system calculates tip pose indirectly, avoiding the need for voluminous sensors at the constrained welding gun tip.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables real-time, delay-free detection of the welding gun tip pose in confined spaces, reducing the gun's volume and ensuring consistent welding quality without additional sensors.
Implementation Method 1
an elastic member is sleeved on the welding cable
Implementation Method 2
calculating friction between the driving rope and an elastic body
Data Source
AI summary
This application relates to a method and a system for driving a soft welding gun. The method includes: obtaining a displacement of a driving rope; calculating a reference value of a welding gun tip pose based on the displacement of the driving rope; obtaining a welding current and a welding voltage; calculating a change value of a distance between a welding gun nozzle tip and a workpiece based on the welding current and the welding voltage; and inputting the reference value of the welding gun tip pose and the change value of the distance between the welding gun nozzle tip and the workpiece to a preset welding gun pose estimation model, and solving to obtain a real-time pose of the soft welding gun tip.