During a recent application of an automated inspection system, we have attached some high performance line scanners on the end of a KR16. The paths for the inspection programs are made via Catia and a KRL post we have written in house. We are using spline interpolation for the inspection paths.
The big problem we are having is that we are seeing vibrations in our scans (< 3mm). This is a problem we have been fighting for a while (~3 months). We have tried smoothing our vectors at NC points (or at least making sure they were smooth) but this does not seem to be all of the problem since we still see these vibrations on a flat plate as well. We have tried changing some global parameters in the config.dat such as velocity, acceleration, jerk, etc; however, this did not seem to help (or do much of anything for that matter; maybe these parameters have no effect on CP motion?). The only thing that really seems to help is slowing down our inspection speed (upwards of 60% slow down). We have also tried using LIN interpolation as opposed to spline; however, this only seemed to have helped because it slowed down the inspection.
We are at the point now where we are thinking of developing a new post so as to post NC points as specific axes positions (A1,A2,A3,A4,A5,A6,A7) instead of our current method of posting XYZABC. Our thinking is that if we do this we will have more control of individual axes motion (changing max accel on A1, changing jerk on A4, etc) as opposed to changing the global CP parameters in the config.dat.
Just checking to see if anybody has faced similar issues or has any suggestions to mitigate these vibrations. I know that industrial robots such as this are not specifically made to be used a super high performance positioners and that the vibrations we are seeing are "normal" or "acceptable" robot vibrations but I'm still hopeful that something out there could help us.
Thanks in advance.