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Force-torque sensor integration in industrial robot control

Conference Paper · September 2014

DOI: 10.1109/REM.2014.6920241

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 Force-torque sensor integration in industrial robot
control

Jonas Loske Rolf Biesenbach

Institute of Automation & Industrial IT Institute of Automation & Industrial IT
University of Applied Sciences Bochum University of Applied Sciences Bochum
Bochum, Germany Bochum, Germany
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract: An industrial robot is usually equipped with position depending on the sensor – there is also created the possibility of
and velocity sensors and a program allows it to move along a certain visualization and analysis of the measured forces and torques.
path. This contribution explores the possibility to equip such an The forces can be recorded and displayed as curves in diagrams
industrial robot with a 3D force-torque sensor. Its signals are or directly displayed live during movements in a 3D coordinate
integrated into the existing control system of the robot so it will be system.
able to react to external influences. Then the robot is sensor
controlled. After integrating the sensor, the control is configured in II. IMPLEMENTATION
a way that the robot can be moved by hand. Furthermore the paper
lines out basics for the realization of other applications: For the For integration of these functions into the robot control
application a 6 axis KUKA KR16-2 in combination with a KRC2 several modifications have to be made. These modifications in
edition05 controller is used. The necessary software enhancements the hard- and software of the controller are explained in the
to the controller and its configuration are described. To determine following.
the required configuration parameters a method of calculation the A. Equipment
sensor alignment and a way to determine the gravity coordinates is
described. The following applications and experiments are For this application, an industrial robot KR 16-2 with a KRC
illustrated: 1. hand-guided robot motion, 2. motion teaching during 2 control from KUKA GmbH has been used. The force -torque
hand-guided robot motion and 3. sensor-guided motion. It is shown sensor is the model "SI -130 -10" by Schunk. Another
how gravity coordinates are calculated and for the motion teaching component of the sensor system is the Net Box by ATI Industrial
necessary data for the coordinate transformation is determined. Automation. It serves as an interface between the sensor and the
Two ways of visualizing the measured forces are presented: the robot control. To extend the robot controller, the sensor system
RSI-Monitor (Robot Sensor Interface) which is a KUKA tool for consists additionally of a technology package called
storing and display transient forces and a JAVA based applet that KUKA.ForceTorqueControl. To fulfill the necessary safety
is able to display forces online during the robots operation. requirements an enabling device from ABB type JSHD4 -E is
Keywords: force-torque sensor, industrial robot, robot sensor used for subsequent manual guidance.
interface
B. Installation and Configuration
I. INTRODUCTION The Net Box is installed directly in the control cabinet. There
The number of industrial robots used worldwide is it is connected via Ethernet to the robot control. The IP address
increasing year by year [1]. They do their job quickly and of the Net Box is set to 192.168.1.1 by using the DIP switches
efficiently, all this in a reproducible quality. In order to integrate [2]. The sensor located at the mounting flange of the robot is
these properties into more and more production processes they connected via Device Net to the Net Box.
are equipped with additional sensors. In this contribution an
1) Network settings
industrial robot is equipped with a force-torque sensor and the
On the KRC C2 two operating systems are running in parallel:
control, configured with the measured values and is
Windows XP embedded and the real-time operating system
programmed so that it is possible to guide the robot by hand. In
VxWorks. The latter is used for communication between the
addition, the manual guidance is made possible with an installed
robot and the controller. The Ethernet port of the control is
tool. After the adjustment of the control software, the robot can
assigned to VxWorks and serves the real-time transmission of
be moved to the desired position by hand and the position is
data between Net Box and control.
saved directly by pressing a button on the hand guiding device.
A very quick and comfortable creation of motion sequences is
made possible this way. In addition to these options, the robot
control has been configured so that it can carry out sensor-
guided movements. That means that the control is capable of
exerting a desired force on a desired object and keeps it constant
during movement. In addition to the movements of the robot -
 be fast, medium and slow. For the entire control circuit, the rise
time and the dead time can be adjusted. The settings of the
controller must be taken with care, as it influences the
movements of the robot significantly and instable states of the
onboard device virtual virtual PCI robot movement may occur. Incorrect settings may cause
adapter adapter device
personal and property damage. [3]

IV. APPLICATIONS
A. Hand guiged robot motion
The hand guiding of a robot offers many practical
Fig. 1. Overview of the network settings advantages. For example, operator can - with special
attachments - move heavy loads by using the robot. In the
following is therefore listed, how the existing robot system was
Due to the real-time requirements of the robot control, the upgraded and configured to allow a hand guidance of the robot.
communication is carried out via the real-time Ethernet bus
EtherNet / IP. 1) Safety
The guidance of a robot by hand is a collaborationist mode.
2) Technical concept of ForceTorqueControl
Humans and robots are working together directly. It is necessary
Figure 2 shows the technical concept of the controlled robot
to take special safety precautions. To make the robot only move
motion by FTCtrl (Force Torque Control). The measured forces
are compared with the target values. The result is processed by when the operator desires, the manual guidance unit is equipped
the control circuit, gets evaluated and then compared with the with an enable device JSHD4 - E from ABB. The robot is only
programmed path. Based on these results, the robot gets moved set in motion if the operator holds the enabling switch in the
by the control, so that the required target values for the forces center position. As a further safety measure, the potential
and torques will be achieved working space in which the robot can be moved by hand is so
limited that neither there is a risk of crushing the security fence
or the floor nor a person could get jammed by the robot.
2) Flange adapter
The need for the hand guide adapter for the flange connection
has been constructed in a way that the force-torque sensor can
be mounted to the flange of the robot. At the sensor, the manual
guidance device can now be fitted with the necessary cable and
the connector.

Sensor
Fig. 2. Technical concept of FTCtrl

III. SOFTWARE EXTENSION

The technology package FTCtrl provides a set of commands
that allows the user, among other things, to enable the robot to
process, depending on existing process forces. Up to six degrees Hand
guiding
of freedom (Fx , Fy, Fz , Tx, Ty, Tz) are considered. It is possible
device
to create configuration files that must be loaded before the
sensor guided movements start. They involve various
parameters such as the mounting position and maximum loads
of the sensor, desired values for the degrees of freedom, break
conditions, path limitation and controller tuning. The tuning of Fig. 3. Flange adapter
the controller provide the opportunity to adjust the stiffness and
the performance of the controller for each degree of freedom.
The system stiffness can be set arbitrarily. The performance can
 3) Configuration file B. Motion teaching during hand-guided robot motion
A configuration file with the parameters discussed above must Based on the handheld robot movement the opportunity has
be created. For this application the adapter is constructed in a been created to save reached points directly. This can create
way that the sensor coordinate system coincides with the flange desired motion sequences very quickly.
coordinate system. Therefore, no rotation is registered. Since the
sensor is mounted 75 mm below the mounting flange the offset 1) Flange adapter
has to be recorded. From the characteristics of the sensor, the In order to guide the robot directly with the tool by hand, the
maximum loads of the degrees of freedom have to be set. The adapter had to be modified in a way, that the hand guiding device
controller shall compensate all occurring forces and moments of and the tool can be mounted on the mounting flange at the same
the sensor in case of guidance of the robot. Therefore all degrees time.
of freedom are activated and the desired value 0 entered. To
compensate the occurring forces and torques the robot follows
the movements of the operator. The path limits should always be
chosen so the collaboration space for the selected application is
minimal. The controller settings were determined according to
various test runs as follows: The system rigidity for all degrees
of freedom is set to the smallest possible value of 2 N and 2 Nm.
The speed is set to fast for all degrees of freedom. The rise time
has been determined to 0.25 s. For a faster rise time, the system
is prone to strong swing. With a slower time the system is indeed
stable, but the effort increases sharply. Hand guiding device
Sensor
including enabling
4) Graivity coordinates switch
Since the orientation of the hand guiding device changes during
guidance, it is necessary to compensate the dead weight of the
sensor mounting to determine the weight and center of gravity
of the mounting. For this purpose, FTCtrl provides the function Tool
rsiftloaddetermination ( ). When called, the robot is moved to
different positions and the forces are measured. With this data Fig. 5. Flange adapter
the coordinates of the centroid are calculated and displayed.
With the coordinates and the known weight of the mounting, the 2) Coordinate transformation
robot control can generate a variable weight vector during the Due to the changed flange adapter the sensor is no longer
initialization of the sensor. congruent with the flange coordinate system. Translation and a
rotation of the coordinate system are necessary to communicate
5) Program flowchart the position of the sensor to the robot control. The translation of
the origin between the flange and the sensor coordinate system
can be measured and entered accordingly in the configuration
file. The rotation must be calculated using the Euler angles. The
Euler angles are a set of three independent variables, which
describe the angular position of a body or of a coordinate system
in three dimensional space. The rotational position is described
by three angles of rotation about the axes of rotation of the
consecutive sequence. Rotation around the Z- axis by A, referred
to the Y axis B and around the X- axis by C. For each rotation
around A, B or C, a rotation matrix is set up.
A rotation (Z-axis)

(1)

B rotation (Y-axis)

(2)

Fig. 4. Program flowchart

C rotation (X-axis) 1) Flange adapter
As with the purely manual guidance, the sensor is mounted with
(3) displacement in the Z direction on the robot flange. On the
sensor itself a rectangular aluminum block is mounted with
which the desired force is exerted on the scale. Optionally, a
chamfered at 20 ° block can be used to show in addition to the
In this project, the alignment must be described first by a rotation
exerted force a compensation of orientation.
of A by 45 °, then of B by -90 °, and finally again of A by -45 °.
Using the equations (1) and (3) it is obtained by multiplying the
matrices, the rotation matrix 2) Configuration file
A translation of 75 mm in the Z direction is entered. An activated
degree of freedom Fz is selected. As a reference value any value
(4) within the measuring range of the sensor and the robot
characteristics can be chosen. For the demonstration the
termination conditions of Fz will be set to the value + / - 0.005
N. This corresponds to approximately 0.5 g. The controller
settings can be individually selected to demonstrate different
For the correct description of the alignment the controller needs
effects. A short rise time (< 0.15 s) or a fast speed make the
the angle of rotation around each axis. These can be calculated
control loop oscillate strongly. If, for example, the system
according to the following definition [4]:
rigidity is set to very soft, the speed is set to medium , the rise
time to 0.3s and the target force to Fz = 29 N the scale shows the
value of 2960 g. So a deviation of only 0.14 % can be reached
 under non-ideal conditions (soft ground, normal household
scale).


 3) Program flowchart

Equations (5) (6) and (7) apply to the matrix (4) providing the
parameter for the control of A = 45 °, B = -45 ° C = 90 °.

3) Configuration file
The configuration file used while hand guiding is copied and
only some parameters are changed. The calculated alignment of
the sensor is entered. In this case, a translation of X = 60 mm, Y
=- 60 mm and Z = 63 mm. The rotation of the sensor coordinate
system with respect to the flange - coordinate system is
calculated as A = 45 °, B = -45 ° C = 90 °. Other changes are
required only at the controller settings. The rise time of 0.25 s to
0.4 s is increased. This stabilizes the loop and allows pinpoint
accuracy in approaching positions with the tool.
4) Program extension
To realize the application, the program for manual guidance will
be extended. In order to save the positions during hand guided
motion, an interrupt routine is needed. The interrupt is triggered
by pressing the button on the hand guiding device. The called
function saves the actual position of the robot in a global array. Fig. 6. Program flowchart
When all positions have been approached and saved, the hand
guided motion can be stopped and the saved positions can be
used in another program for the creation of motion sequences. V. VISUALIZATION
C. Sensor guided motion There are two different ways to visualize the measured forces
To demonstrate a sensor-guided motion, the robot applies a graphically. First, the RSI monitor developed by KUKA, which
set force Fz to a digital scale. This shows how precise the robot is able to record and save forces during program execution.
can exert desired process forces with the help of the force-torque Second the Net Box provides a JAVA-based applet, which
sensor. Furthermore, the impact of the regulator's response can illustrates the forces on a graphical user interface in a 3D
be demonstrated with changes of the parameters. coordinate system.
A. RSI-Monitor
In order to use the RSI monitor, it must be initialized, started
and stopped in the program. During initialization of the monitor
the refresh rate, IP address of the virtual adapter, the port of the
transmitting and the source must be indicated. In this project,
the IP address 192.168.1.2, port 6000 and the refresh rate 12 ms
are set. As a source, various recording modes and a choice
between moments and forces can be made. Figure 8 shows the
recording of the forces in the purely sensor-guided motion of
the robot with the RSI monitor.

Fz
Fy
Fx

Fig. 8. JAVA Applet

Fig. 7. Force diagram with RSI-Monitor VI. CONCLUSION

In this contribution is shown how an industrial robot using a
force-torque sensor can be configured in a way that hand guiding
B. JAVA-Applet the robot by the operator is made possible. Based on this hand
guiding the controller has been configured in a way that desired
Via the Web interface of the Net Box an applet can be movements can be created very quickly and efficiently.
downloaded. After starting the applet, the IP address of the Net Furthermore, the configuration of the controller to exercise
Box must be entered. Due to the real-time requirement of the desired process forces has been described and explained. To
control the simultaneous visualization of the data while it is determine the required configuration parameters a method of
processed by the robot controller is not possible. The previous calculation the sensor alignment and a way to determine the
configuration of the robot controller must now be done via the gravity coordinates is described. For evaluation and further
web interface of the Net Box. Thus, the data to the sensor processing of the measured forces and torques two different
alignment etc. are entered via the web interface. The applet ways of visualization and recording of process forces were
shows the currently measured forces and moments by the sensor explained. The RSI monitor that enables recording of the forces
live in a three-dimensional coordinate system. Additionally, the during control on the robot controller and a JAVA applet that
measured values of each degree of freedom will be shown as an allows recording the forces regardless of the force control on an
absolute value with an associated bar graph. The measured data external computer.
can be recorded as a stream, so that the data can then be
processed further. For possibly occurring error messages an
error log is provided by the applet. VII. REFERENCES
[1] IFR Statistical department press release 23.05.2012,
Available http://www.worldrobotics.org/index.php?id=home&news_id
=261, 25. August 2013
[2] ATI Industrial Automation, “Network Force/Torque Sensor System –
Installation and Operation Manual”, USA, 2010.
[3] KUKA GmbH, “KUKA.ForceTorqueControl 2.3.”, Augsburg, 2012.
[4] B. Siciliano, “Springer handbook of robotics”, Springer, Berlin, 2008.
[5] J. Loske, R. Biesenbach, ”Analysis of Options on the Integration of a
Force-Torque Sensor in the Control of KUKA KRC 2 edition05 of an
Industrial Robot”, International Conference on Engineering Science and
Innovative Technology, ESIT 2014, Thailand, April 2014

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