Robust Scheduling in a Multi-Robot Welding System

Abstract

Multi-robot systems have been introduced actively in heavy industries in order to increase the productivity. However, since robots are disposed as densely as possible in a working stage in the multi-robot system, collisions between adjacent robots could occur. Because the collision prevents effective production, collision occurrence should be avoided. On the other hand, robustness of a schedule in a sense that small time lags between the schedule and the actual operation do not affect occurrence of collisions is also important. This paper deals with the scheduling system based on the genetic algorithm (GA) which attains these two objectives. Its effectiveness is shown by numerical simulations with practical workpieces.