Development of an Experimental Test Bench by Means of Force Control in an Industrial Robot for the Analysis of the Mechanical Response in Car Seats

In this work the design of an experimental test Platform analysis of the mechanical behavior of car seats during passenger ingress and egress is presented. This development has been performed in two steps: the first Step is data acquisition. by means of a mat sensorized with a pressure gauge net and a photogrammetry system so as to acquire the movements performed by a human during ingress and egress. The Second Step Consists in reproducing these movements automatically by means of a dummy held by a robot. controlling the force applied by the dummy on the seat. This development must allow applying different force control strategies with industrial robots. therefore using I test platform consisting in an ABB IRB140 robot and a JR3 industrial force sensor with 6 degrees of freedom. As control architecture, two alternatives are presented. The first one uses the ABB Web Ware SDK software application. In the second one, the original S4CPlus controller has been modified. providing an open control architecture that allows the implementation of new motion and force control algorithms in the industrial robot. With this application the process performed by a human during and egress simulated, monitoring, and controlling the force applied by the dummy on the seat in order to ensure the Same conditions as in a real situation. The developed System has Several Practical applications, namely allowing the analysis of the wearing produced in the seat upholstery. Copyright (C) 2009 CEA.