Design and implementation of simple programming interface for industrial robots

Industrial robots have become one of the irreplaceable equipment for modern manufacturing systems by their opportunities on production standardization, speed and stability and their usage demands grows day by day. Although industrial robots are developed rapidly and their service areas become diversified, programming techniques of them are not progressed by the same rate. Robot programming techniques which are utilized nowadays, generally, includes motion leading by using a hand terminal which is supplied by the robot manufacturer or coding by a producer specialized programming language which is offered by the manufacturer. These techniques make the programming task a tough and costly process which requires extensive education and experience. In this case, an operator who is experienced and trained for the related robot is required. This situation causes an important cost. The cost could be negligible for a mass production facility. However, it is not possible to afford the cost for small and medium sizes facilities which produces many diverse product range and few in number. In this thesis, a simple programming method is developed to generate a solution which does not require operator experience and talent, also applicable, for the mentioned issue. Developed method is based on image and point cloud processing and also provide an opportunity to program an industrial robot by simple user interface interactions. The applied techniques are explained by detailed mathematical models, pseudocodes and sample application visualizations. Eventually, it is presented how to utilize the designed and implemented system for a real-world application.