A basic task in the design of an industrial robot application is the relative placement of robot and workpiece. Process points are defined in Cartesian coordinates relative to the workpiece coordinate system, and the workpiece has to be located such that the robot can reach all points. Finding such a location is still an iterative procedure based on the developers' intuition. One difficulty is the choice of one of the several solutions of the backward transform of a typical 6R robot. % combined with the limited range of the axes. We present a novel algorithm that simultaneously optimizes the workpiece location and the robot configuration at all process points using higher order optimization algorithms. A key ingredient is the extension of the robot with a virtual prismatic axis. The practical feasibility of the approach is shown with an example using a commercial industrial robot.

翻译：工业机器人应用设计中的基本任务之一，是确定机器人与其工件的相对位置。工艺点以笛卡尔坐标形式相对于工件坐标系定义，而工件必须被定位在机器人能够到达所有点的位置。寻找这样的位置目前仍是基于开发者直觉的迭代过程。其难点之一在于典型六自由度旋转关节机器人（6R机器人）逆变换的多解选择，同时还需结合关节运动范围限制。我们提出了一种新颖算法，利用高阶优化方法在全部工艺点上同步优化工件位置与机器人配置。该算法的关键创新在于引入虚拟移动副来扩展机器人运动学模型。通过使用商业工业机器人的实例，验证了该方法的实际可行性。