Robot Retrofitting by Using LinuxCNC Complemented with Arduino/RaspberryPI

Abstract

The use of robots for any manufacturing process is present in almost every industry nowadays. Nevertheless, automating the manufacturing process has always been a challenge for every one of them due to costs and complexity of adding this kind of automation. Acquiring robotic equipment in a concentrated market where the vendors have locked-in their clients can be expensive. In addition to this, the development of intern-factory made solutions has a very steep learning curve and it is not easily achievable. Due to these barriers small and medium size players can’t easily jump into this revolution. In this paper we analyze and develop tools in order to retrofit robotic components, legacy computer hardware with a combination of inexpensive hardware to help SME’s to reduce costs and increase their productivity. Also, we demonstrate the feasibility of testing the tools in a virtual environment before moving into the real world. This virtual environment also remains a powerful tool for training and process simulation as the retrofitted robot is operated in production. We started working with an old pen plotter with two degrees of freedom as proof of concept (POC) and then developed and investigated the tools to generalize this concept to control a 6 degrees of freedom robotic arm (first step PUMA560) and then project it to a concept Industry 4.0 cell with several controllers that interact with each other. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the use of widely available open source technologies such as Linux Operating System and LinuxCNC and, also, the use of inexpensive hardware like Arduino-Raspberry PI and legacy hardware for motor-divers to create controllers that can be used in a variety of different robot types in the virtual world and also laying the groundwork to control a real robotic arm.