Path rendering and velocity restriction with welding-assisting device composed of magnetorheological brakes

摘要

In the shipbuilding industry, welding is one of the forms of nonautomated heavy labor, and thewelding operator is required to weld indeterminate objects in a narrow working space. Therefore, it isdifficult to use large equipment, such as industrial robots. In addition, it is not easy to perform high-qualitywelding, because tracing a welding line accurately at a constant speed requires a long training period. Inthis research, the aim was to develop a welding assist device that can be applied to a welding environment.The proposed device fixes to the welding surface by magnetic force and assists semiautomatic weldingwith a magnetorheological (MR) brake.MR brakes have a sufficient response speed compared with powderbrakes, have a large output weight ratio, and are considered to be suitable for welding assistance. In thiswork, a strategy for control of path rendering and speed restriction by MR brakes is proposed. ltseffectiveness was confirmed by experiments with a prototype.