Teaching data characteristics for direct teaching using a robot with a dual-shell structure

In this paper, a robot with a dual-shell structure is proposed to improve operability using direct teaching. The dual-shell structure separates the robot arm actuator from the gripper for the operator. Hence, during the teaching process, the robot arm is able to track the motion of the operator and the operability within the arm´s movable range can be improved. Furthermore, by inserting an elastic body into the robot´s dual-shell structure, operation with an adequate viscosity for the operator can be achieved. To assess the effectiveness of this structure, an evaluation system is constructed based on a dual-shell structure robot with an elastic body inserted, for the skilled task of inserting flexible printed circuits. In the evaluation experiments, it was found that the teaching time is approximately 1500 msec shorter with the elastic body, and no matter which teaching data is used, the flexible printed circuit is inserted successfully.