The present study proposes the use of an industrial serial robot to reduce the investment cost and to increase the process flexibility of Friction Stir Welding (FSW). The first part of this paper presents the approach to improve the accuracy of the robot under high forces. A dual-loop control force/position is used to compensate the robot tool deviation in real-time. Unlike classical industrial robots, a second position control loop with secondary encoders is used in order to compensate in dynamic the lateral tool deviation. Moreover, the second position control loop is combined with the force control loop which control the axial forging force. The second part shows the relevance of the proposed method with industrial case applications (1D, 2D and 3D welds on real parts). This solution is standardized and could be achieved on other robots. No modification of the robot is required. Consequently, the security and the conformity of the robot are preserved. The application is patented by Institut MAUPERTUIS [1].
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