Optimal time-jerk trajectory planning of 6 axis welding robot using TLBO method

Abstract In this paper an efficient approach for optimal offline trajectory planning of welding robot is presented. The welding path is considered as a continuous path compromising of a no. of polynomial segments. During robotic welding process, the end effector is deviated from the weld seam path due to production of jerk. This results in yielding of weld defects after welding operation is performed. Therefore, for robotic welding operation, smooth trajectory planning has been set as priori. For this the objective function has been defined terms of both time and squared jerk. By minimizing the jerk, the continuity of acceleration and velocity can be achieved by which leads to smooth robotic motion. An efficient meta-heuristic method, Teaching Learning Based Optimization (TLBO) algorithm has been used to get optimized results. It has been observed that the jerk has been reduced very significantly with optimal results of time.