RoboTViRMo: a Virtual Reality System for off-line Robotised Deburring

In order to improve manufacturing processes and their automated integration, RoboTViRMo (Robot Teaching in Virtual Reality Mode) is aimed at designing and developing a user friendly system for the robot off-line programming in a virtual environment. The project, aiming at increasing the automation level in the small-medium enterprise plants by robot, proposes to develop tools for users, experts in the manufacturing processes, but who don't know programming languages for robotised systems. Using a Data Glove, or a 3D pointer, and Head Mounted Display (HMD), or stereoscopic glasses, it will be possible to program a robot for deburring operations without the knowledge of robot programming languages and of 3D graphical simulators, thanks to the use of the natural language performed by the user's hand movement and based on his experience. The system is composed by 4 main integrated environments: two are virtual environments, one is a 3D graphical simulator and one is a real deburring cell. The first environment allows the user to locate the burrs on the piece surface and to model, within a virtual environment and starting from the original 3D CAD model, the 3D model of the work piece. The second one allows the user to perform the virtual deburring on the piece: it could be done automatically, through a software for the deburring trajectory research (RATS project), or manually, through virtual operations of the user, that can select whether to furnish just few information (i.e. tool orientation, starting points, etc.) to the automatic system in order to decrease the time needed for the trajectory research or to perform the whole deburring process in the virtual environment. The third environment is a graphical 3D simulator that, on one hand, allows to value the designed tracks (automatic or manual ones) doing the feasibility analysis and the collision detection, and, on the other hand, realizes the down load on the real robot control for the physical deburring through a post-processor. The last environment is the physical one, where an anthropomorphic robot for the deburring operation onto sample pieces is modeled as described in the paper. The original and innovative approach is the application field, that is a complex manufacturing one that requires the presence of an expert of the job and, nowadays, a computer expert for technical support. RoboTViRMo helps the expert in utilizing the informative system without any middle-person and directly uses the expert experience in the simulation developing. The authors present the first prototype for deburring operations and the hardware and software configuration that allows to reach them.