Welding is a work with bad working environment, high working intensity, high requirements for work proficiency and potential harm to operators. The emergence of welding robots effectively solves this contradiction between supply and demand, and can enable more people to devote their working time to more creative work.

The development of welding robot technology is almost synchronized with the development of typical joint robot technology. The development, research and application of various robot technologies promote the rapid development of China's industry. In particular, welding robots occupy a very important position in all kinds of robots, accounting for about 1/3 of industrial robots, and play a vital role in the economic development and transformation of our country.

1. Classification of welding robots

The classification forms of welding robots are various, and the welding robots can be classified according to the practical application requirements from the aspects of technical level, process method, structure form, controlled mode, driving mode and so on

1.1 From the technical level

Welding robots can be divided into the following 3 generations:

The first generation of "teaching reproduction" type welding robot;

The second generation of off-line programming welding robot based on sensing technology;

The third generation intelligent welding robot.

1.2 From the perspective of process method

Welding robots can be divided into: spot welding robot, arc welding robot, friction stir welding robot, laser welding robot, plasma welding robot and so on.

1.3 From the perspective of structural form

The welding robot can be divided into: cartesian coordinate type, cylindrical coordinate type, spherical coordinate type and total joint type.

1.4 From the perspective of controlled motion mode

Welding robot can be divided into: point control type and continuous trajectory control type.

1.5 From the perspective of driving mode

Welding robot can be divided into: pneumatic drive, hydraulic drive, electric drive.

2. Current situation of welding robot in China

By the end of 2015, the number of welding robots in China was about 83,081, an increase of 18% over 2014, accounting for 32.4% of the number of industrial robots. In 2014, the industry density of welding robots in China was about 352, which was much higher than the density of 36 industrial robots in China during the same period. In the same period, South Korea, the country with the highest density of industrial robots in the world, has a density of 478 industrial robots. According to incomplete statistics, welding machine robots serving the field of welding processing account for about half of the world's industrial robots in service. It can be predicted that the welding robot still has a great development space in our country.

At present, the most used welding robot in China's industrial field is arc welding robot, followed by spot welding robot, welding robot in the domestic market is mainly divided into Japanese, European and domestic 3 kinds.

3. Problems existing in the application of welding robots

Welding robot parts are expensive;

The problem of welding programming for complex weldparts;

The problem of re-teaching after the relative position of the robot and the weldment changes;

Locating and clearing the gun auxiliary time is too long.

4. Future technology trend of welding machine robot

4.1 Efficient, high-performance and digital arc welding power supply technology

4.2 Welding automation and intelligent technology

4.3 Welding seam automatic identification and tracking technology

4.4 Weld forming quality control technology

4.5 Remote control welding technology

4.6 Coordinated control technology of multiple welding robots and peripheral equipment

4.7 Offline programming and simulation technology With the transformation of the domestic economic development mode, the demographic dividend has disappeared, and the low-end industries that relied on labor intensive before can not be sustained. Under the background of the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, it has been the general trend to realize the automation, flexibility and intelligence of welding production. In the future, if China's welding field wants to truly achieve high-quality, efficient and low-cost automation, flexibility and intelligent welding, there is still a lot of work to be done in the improvement of the welding robot policy support system and the research and development of welding robot related technologies.