what's the difference between softfloat and force sensor?
what's the difference between softfloat and force sensor?
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leoyang -
February 10, 2015 at 1:57 PM -
Thread is marked as Resolved.
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soft-float makes the robot 'adjustable', and by that i mean that once soft-float is enabled you could grab the robot by J6 and move it around by hand. The robot will continue to monitor its position and once soft-float is disabled it will take off again from its new position. this is useful if you have a robot that needs to follow a press break or center up on a chuck. some external force will move the robot within limits set up before hand.
force sensor is a plate that is installed on the wrist between the J6 and your EOA. it has a lot of transducers on it and is very sensitive. if you engineering is done right, (check the specs on the sensor as they are very specific) the robot will be able to compensate for small alignment error. think putting a slip fit pin into a bushing. off the top of my head i want to say ~.003" clearance. this process is not super fast, but it does let the robot take over some tasks that were previously exclusively for human hands.
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Leoyang
let´s say you have an insetion task of a shaft in a hole with tight tolerances, If the shaft and hole are not perfectly aligned and the parts are rigidly mounted , since the robot is also rigid and stiff there would be nothing flexible that could compensate the misalignment. If the robot moves the part in the insertion direction, the interference impedes the movement and the controller would try to compensate by increasing the current to the motors up to the point to motor overload or deform the parts.
You can solve this by using a mechanical compliance device, that would allow the part to tilt if subject to a force.
Well, softload is a SOFTWARE option that makes the robot compliance by merely controlling the current to the motors. Is a very nice function, you can make one or more axis compliant OR make the tool to compliant in cartesian coordinate directions. Very useful for insertion or assembly tasks
FORCE SENSOR is a HARDWARE and SOFTWARE option, a force sensor device is mounted between the robot mountin plate and the EOAT. The sensor has a rigid section attached to the robot and a compliant section where the part is mounted. When the part tilts the deflection is transduced to an electrical signal and feedback to the controller. You can use the force data in insertion tasks: the robot moves the SENSOR-EOAT assembly to "probe" the zone then use the force readings to plan and/or generate the requiered insertion movement.