User-friendly task level programming based on an online walk-through teaching approach

Purpose – This paper aims to propose a new technique for programming robotized machining tasks based on intuitive human–machine interaction. This will enable operators to create robot programs for small-batch production in a fast and easy way, reducing the required time to accomplish the programming tasks. Design/methodology/approach – This technique makes use of online walk-through path guidance using an external force/torque sensor, and simple and intuitive visual programming, by a demonstration method and symbolic task-level programming. Findings – Thanks to this technique, the operator can easily program robots without learning every robot-specific language and can design new tasks for industrial robots based on manual guidance. Originality/value – The main contribution of the paper is a new procedure to program machining tasks based on manual guidance (walk-through teaching method) and user-friendly visual programming. Up to now, the acquisition of paths and the task programming were done in separate steps and in separate machines. The authors propose a procedure for using a tablet as the only user interface to acquire paths and to make a program to use this path for machining tasks.