GUI Teaching Pendant Development for a 6 Axis Articulated Robot

The main objective of this paper is to replace an Industrial Teach-Pendant with a virtual GUI that contains many of the main traditional functions that are found in pendants designed to drive the Motoman HP3J by Yaskawa. The GUI is made up of separate Tabs for authentication, descriptive help, validations and descriptive error messages, all of which are presented in an aesthetically pleasing appearance with menus and buttons that depict the different functionalities. Some of the main functions include direct and inverse kinematics, as well as path planning. The paper will present a GUI Teaching Pendant interface that employs Linear Interpolation and Joint Interpolation, to navigate to control navigate and plan the robot arm path movement. Furthermore, direct and inverse kinematics, as well as the DH parameters of the HP3J manipulator will be explained along with the special functions that are used to enhance the safety and invalid inputs. The paper will conclude by comparing the GUI Teach Pendant functions to those of the Industrial Teach Pendant, highlighting the advantages of this proposal. The system was tested in the University of Nottingham and has proven to be a good teaching tool to aid students in understanding basic robotics, direct and inverse kinematics, and path planning.