Method and system for determining joint values of an external axis in robot manufacturing

A data processing system, comprising:

• a processor;
• an accessible memory;
• and
• the data processing system configured to:
• a) receive information inputs including virtual representation of a robot, virtual representation of a tool, information on a sequence of target locations, kinematic information on joints of at least one external axis, information on a motion type between the robot and the at least one external axis;
• b) generate, for each target location, at least one weight factor table representing, for each available configuration of an axis joint motion, a combined effort of robot motion and the axis joint motion depending on a type of combined motion between the robot and the at least one external axis;
• c) determine valid weight factor values of the at least one weight factor table by simulating collision free trajectories during a motion of the robot and the at least one external axis enabling the tool to reach a target location sequence;
• and
• d) determine a sequence of joint values of the at least one external axis by finding from the weight factor table the sequence of joint values for which a sum of corresponding weight factors for the tool to reach the target location sequence is minimized.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with executable instructions that, when executed, cause at least one data processing system to:

• a) receive information inputs including virtual representation of a robot, virtual representation of a tool, information on a sequence of target locations, kinematic information on joints of at least one external axis, information on a motion type between the robot and the at least one external axis;
• b) generate, for each target location, at least one weight factor table representing, for each available configuration of axis joint motion, a combined effort of robot motion and the axis joint motion depending on a type of combined motion between the robot and the at least one external axis;
• c) determine valid weight factor values of at least one weight factor table by simulating collision free trajectories during motion of the robot and the at least one external axis enabling the tool to reach a target location sequence;
• and
• d) determine a sequence of joint values of the at least one external axis by finding from the weight factor table a sequence of joint values for which a sum of corresponding weight factors for the tool to reach the target location sequence is minimized.