Robot station optimization for minimizing dress pack problems

Problems with robot dress packs are one of the major reasons for online adjustments of robot motions and for down time in robot stations. A factory study showed that many robots wear out more than one dress pack per year. The life length variation was in fact shown considerable, ranging from years to only months. The dress packs consist of attached cables and hoses which typically have significant impact on allowed robot configurations and motions in the station. In this paper, we present novel simulation methods for improving robot configurations and motions during off-line programming and optimization of robot stations. The proposed method is applied to a stud welding station resulting in the elimination of several problems related to the dress packs.