Free shape paths in industrial robots

Standard industrial robots offer limited capabilities for implementing free shape paths, nevertheless future industrial robotics application might require features like this. This paper demonstrates how to implement free shape paths in standard manipulators by using Bezier curves. Bezier curves descriptors can be stored as robot position points and later interpolated by using the De Casteljaus algorithm within the robot controller. With this technique is possible to have complex paths by transferring and storing a little amount of data points. The approach was tested in a SCARA robot. Due to the simplicity of the De Casteljaus algorithm and the common point storage mechanism, this method can be implemented in most of the industrial robots.