PLANNING AND PROGRAMMING WELDING PATHS, USING A HAPTIC INTERFACE IN A 3D ENVIRONMENT FOR LEARNING THE ARC WELDING PROCESS

The arc welding process has a substantially complex nature, making it a difficult and specialized work. In this paper, it is proposed the use of a haptic interface in an Off-Line Programming (OLP) system for a welding robot that allows the planning and programming of welding paths.

The traditional techniques used for teaching routes to be followed by the robot to perform its task, involving manual repetitions are risky, slow and disruptive to the production process. In this regard, the Virtual Reality (VR) and OLP techniques offer several advantages and emerge as an attractive option to define an integrated industrial production process. The VR technology is currently used as a teaching tool in a number of different application areas, where the 3D simulations are realistic and accurate thanks to its highly visual and multisensory approach.

Meanwhile, the haptic interface it pretends to facilitate user interaction with the 3D environment, the user will feel in his hand the contact of the virtual torch with the virtual plates to be welded, in such a way that the positioning of the torch becomes intuitive and does not need a previous knowledge of desired operational coordinates or geometric patterns.

In addition, this can be very useful for students and other users for learning the arc welding process. The development of 3D learning environments favors the generation and acquisition of new knowledge, protecting the use of real equipment.