Mixed Reality-Augmented Remote Welding System with Virtual Fixtures and Autonomous Agents
Linhu Wei, Aiguo Song, Huiran Hu, Jingchao Mao · 2024
In modern industrial production, although welding robots surpass humans in stability and safety, they have limitations in dealing with the unpredictability of actual production, especially in unstructured environments. To combine the adaptability of human welders with the precision of robots, we design an intuitive human-machine interactive remote welding system. In this system, we develop a mixed reality interface that allows operators to real-time reconstruct and update the 3D model of unknown workpieces, and integrate virtual fixtures to provide real-time welding control. At the same time, to reduce the cognitive burden on operators, we introduce autonomous agents to automatically maintain welding angles and heights. Experiments conducted on the remote robot welding platform show that compared to traditional direct teleoperation, we effectively reduce the operational load, while reducing trajectory errors by 67.59% and shortening task time by 51%.