DEVELOPMENT OF A CAD/CAM ROBOTIC TRANSLATOR FOR PROGRAMMING THE IBM 7535 SCARA ROBOT OFF-LINE

The objective of this paper is to carefully examine the important issues involved in the design and development of a CAD/CAM translator for an industrial robot and report the successful development of a translator for the IBM 7535 SCARA (Selective Compliance Assembly Robotic Arm) robot to convert the simulation data from McDonnell Douglas' PLACE system to AML/E at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). SCARA robots are widely used in assembly operations and the translator serves as the interface between the CAD system and the robot controller. It has been found that there are numerous significant advantages, such as off-line programming (OLP), of using such a translator in various manufacturing industries. OLP involves the translation of positioning instructions, process parameters and other appropriate instructions to the robot's native language. The translator output is then generally downloaded to the robot controller directly. This paper concentrates on the process followed in designing and developing such a robotic translator for the IBM 7535 robot. Various issues and challenges encountered along the way are described in detail. The Evans & Sutherland CAD system and the McDonnell Douglas robotic simulation software comprising four software packages, namely PLACE, BUILD, ADJUST and COMMAND, have been used for simulating the workcell.