1. Introduction
In general, teaching-and-playback type robot teaching is conducted after all steps have been completed, including work cell design, jig and gun production and installation. As a result, in the event that a problem occurs, such as the intervention of a jig in the teaching step, reinstallation must be done by redesigning the jig or the gun, or by changing the location of the robot. This results in wasted man-hours.
When an OLP (Off-Line Programming) approach is used, steps such as robot work plan and simulation, intervention check, cycle time measurement and optimization are performed in advance at the stage of designing the work cell that includes the robot, through a 3D virtual environment on a workstation or PC. This includes a type of teaching that compensates for the downside of the teaching-playback mode that creates the robot work program and moves it to the controller. The S/W used to perform these steps is called a CAR (Computer-Aided Robotics) tool, or a CAPE (Computer-Aided Production Engineering) tool.
Currently, numerous products including ROBCAD, IGRIP and Workspace are used in industrial settings as commercial CAR tools that support various controllers. For these products to execute the OLP process of a specific robot, the OLP package, which is a S/W module, is required. The OLP package performs 3D model simulation as well as robot controller simulation of the appropriate robot, and executes operations such as outputting a correct work program for its application.
1.1. Introduction to Hi5 OLP Package