Real-time direct pose control of industrial robots with proprietary robot controller based on a redundant camera tracking system

Industrial robots suffer from low absolute pose accuracy, hampering their widespread use in manufacturing tasks such as milling, additive manufacturing or forming. Meanwhile, computer vision is becoming increasingly relevant in terms of digitalization. This paper introduces a method for direct closed-loop control of industrial robot’s pose deviations using a redundant camera tracking system. The approach is compatible with commercially available robot controllers. In particular, a real-time data interface for FANUC robot controllers is presented. By means of the proposed method, the absolute pose accuracy can be increased by more than 90 % in position and orientation even under external loading.