Implementation of ROS-enabled Industrial Production Environment

Abstract

This thesis presents the procedure to implement the ROS-Industrial architecture into the industrial robotic environment. This is implemented by developing the packages related to modeling and configuring the industrial robot with ROS-I. Using the ROS capabilities, libraries and tools, this thesis develops an industrial robot application which enables the industrial robot to adapt and react to its workspace changes. This implies that it acknowledges the presence of obstacles in its path and re-plans an alternative path in order to avoid those. The obstacles may be the objects or the humans working near the robot. This system enables the industrial robot to exhibit the flexible movements in a fixed as well as dynamic environments. The fixed objects present in the robot workspace are created manually in the ROS environment while the dynamic objects are brought into the ROS environment by integrating the 3D sensor (camera) with the ROS. Moreover, this thesis presents the mechanism for ROS integrated gripper control of the ABB IRB4600 robot. It provides the analysis on the motion planners for selecting the best motion planner for ABB IRB4600 robot. Furthermore, this research establishes the framework for letting the industrial robots out of their cages and enables the continuation of the robot operation while sharing the workspace with human operators. Safety of those operators is supported in this system with its collision avoidance feature. This feature provides an additional safety measure to human workers along with the already configured safety standards (ISO/TS 15066, ISO 10218-1 & 10218-2) of human-robot collaboration.