Trajectory Generation for High Speed Pick and Place Robots

Abstract

Currently parallel robots are finding more and more acceptance in high-speed pick-and-place operations. As for all high-speed mechanisms, vibratory phenomena appear and deteriorate accuracy and dynamic performance at the terminal positions of the pick-and-place path. This paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of several pick-and-place trajectories in terms of vibration reduction. To address this problem, an elastodynamic model of a five bar mechanism is developed and its behaviour is simulated as it traverses each trajectory. Spectral analysis of the vibrations allows the quality of the vibration reduction to be quantified. The results show that the first and second natural frequencies of the system are excited. It is also shown that long cycle times with smooth motion profiles improve residual error norms, but are outperformed by their discontinuous counterparts when short cycle times are imposed.