Robot Programming Through Augmented Trajectories in Augmented Reality

This paper presents a future-focused approach for robot programming based on augmented trajectories. Using a mixed reality head-mounted display (Microsoft Hololens) and a 7-DOF robot arm, we designed an augmented reality (AR) robotic interface with four interactive functions to ease the robot programming task: 1) Trajectory specification. 2) Virtual previews of robot motion. 3) Visualization of robot parameters. 4) Online reprogramming during simulation and execution. We validate our AR-robot teaching interface by comparing it with a kinesthetic teaching interface in two different scenarios as part of a pilot study: creation of contact surface path and free space path. Furthermore, we present an industrial case study that illustrates our AR manufacturing paradigm by interacting with a 7-DOF robot arm to reduce wrinkles during the pleating step of the carbon-fiber-reinforcement-polymer vacuum bagging process in a simulated scenario.